Original release date: April 10, 1999.

Rating: TV-PG

Length: 1 hour, 25 minutes

Background:

Oh no. I finally hit a “Disney Channel Original Movie.” D-coms, as they are often called, are sometimes great but usually the thing of nightmares. They’re made exclusively for Disney Channel (and sometimes its sibling channel Disney XD) and don’t usually have the budget – or the casting – of the movies that hit the big screen.

D-coms went big in the late 1990s and 2000s, spawning stars like Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and… some others, probably. The “High School Musical” series blew up, launching stars and being pretty good movies.

I’m mostly used to the D-coms of today, the ones my daughter loves and I’ve grown to begrudgedly like as well – Descendants, Zombies, and the like.

“Can of Worms,” my friends, is not of that caliber. It was the first D-com to be rated TV-PG, mainly due to the creepiness of said worms.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Kathy Mackel, who was the original writer of the script as well. Disney didn’t like it, canning – ha – her for a new writer who did three rewrites. Disney rehired Mackel, with her winning sole screenwriting credit.

It did okay upon premiere, not scoring crazy high ratings. It hit the archives for a bit until the late 2000s when Disney realized Halloween movies were their jam and threw it into marathons.

Review:

I’m going to be real with you all. I went into this with low expectations. I picked the cheesiest sounding and looking D-com of the list.

It scrapped up on those expectations, but just barely.

There is a plot here, as this did come from a book. Mike Pillsbury, who I assume gets called the Pillsbury Dough Boy at school, believes he is an alien. Some stuff happens.

An alien dog appears. It can talk through a device. Sure. I just reviewed “Up.” An alien lawyer appears. Mike opens a – ready? – can of worms with all of this talk with aliens. It gets more dumb from there. Read the Wikipedia page.

It’s a level of cheese so big that Mickey himself would love it. It’s.. not great. Maybe the book tells it better, but the movie is just… bad.

Extras:

No.

Should you watch it?

No. Don’t watch it. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t open this can of worms.