Herbie Goes Bananas

Dir: Vincent McEveety

1980

***

Widely regarded as the worst of the franchise (at the time of release anyway), Herbie Goes Bananas was always the Herbie film I felt best represented the character. Indeed, Herbie meets what I always thought was a great representation of his human counterpart, a mischievous little Latino boy called Paco. Herbie's original owner Jim has gone but has left his little Volkswagen Beetle to his racing driver nephew Pete. Along with his best friend DJ, the pair travel to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to retrieve the car and then board a ship to Rio de Janeiro to enter Herbie in the Brazil Grand Primeo. While Pete fakes his love for a young girl aboard the ship with the intention to get her wealthy Aunt to sponsor their race entry, Herbie gets up to shenanigans with Paco, a young pickpocket who smuggled himself in Herbie to hitch a ride, not realizing where they were going. After ruining the captain's costume party, Herbie is tried and sentenced by the captain to be thrown in the sea, in what is the film's weakest moment it has to be said. Apparently the stunt car that they threw over the side was never recovered and I wonder if it was the inspiration behind the rusted VW Beetle seen on the ocean bed in 2016's Finding Dory? Herbie somehow manages to drive underwater to dry land and soon reunites with Paco and the pair embark on a one car taxi enterprise. If it didn't feel like the writers were making the story up as they went along enough, Paco and Herbie get mixed up in a crime syndicate after Paco pickpockets the wallets of three very bad men (played rather well by John Vernon, Alex Rocco and Richard Jaeckel). There is a great scene where Herbie becomes a Matador but the film is generally a bit of a muddled mess. The title Herbie Goes Bananas seems to be, purely because Herbie hides in a pile of bananas in a very short scene, giving even more weight behind the idea that no one really knew what they wanted to achieve with the film and that it was more of a series of scenes, rather than a film with a coherent plot. The last scene, where Paco explains to the group why he refers to Herbie as 'Ocho' throughout the film is incredibly cheesy, and not in a good way. 5+3, as in Herbie's racing number 53, equals 8 and 8 in Spanish is 'Ocho'. Everyone laughs because maths is funny. I'll still defend the film though, it's flawed but it’s innocent and fun and impossible to hate.