Movie Review: Paint

Screenwriter and director – Brit McAdams probably thought that there was some humor to extract from the long-term PBS show where a quiet talking artist, would create landscape paintings with his unique style of speaking while making it look like painting outstanding-looking landscapes was actually easy to do. The star of this PBS show called “The Joy of Painting” ran on PBS from 1983-1994 and starred the late Bob Ross. This unusual show was somewhat funny in terms of the quiet unusual way Bob would talk with his curly afro-like hair. This ground breaking 1-hour show was one of the very few Art shows to ever be produced for television.

Unfortunately, there is not nearly enough humor for a show like this to carry a 2-hour movie called “Paint” – despite the attempt to parody a TV production this unique. I for one am surprised that this movie idea was ever greenlighted to be turned into a major movie release. This idea is not nearly funny enough to be considered a comedy, and not nearly interesting enough to keep anyone’s attention for a full two hours.

The new movie Paint stars Owen Wilson as Carl who is the star of a painting show on PBS – exactly like Bob Ross’s show that was so popular from 1983-1994. Most of the humor attempts fall flat, as well as the side stories that include some affairs with Bob and some of the women who work on the “Joy of Painting Set”. There are major parts of this movie that are very slow and boring, understandable considering the lack of funny ideas to keep anyone’s attention for anywhere near the full two hours. One area that does work is when Carl loses his job and then his art suddenly becomes very valuable when it seems that he may have died. Other than a few small moments of humor it is hard to believe that anyone decided to make this into a movie and Owen Wilson decided to take this pretty bad part.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Paint is accurate and low 25% and I agree with this assessment, with a big miss for this film at all costs recommendation.