Can of Worms, on Disney Channel
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This came out in 1999. I'm not sure if I first saw it then, or in the early 2000s. But I didn't really remember anything about it by the time I rewatched it in 2025 during my Summer of DCOMs. The rating I've given it is low, and even that I feel is slightly generous. I don't think it's a particularly good movie, but I didn't actually dislike it. I guess. I don't think it's as funny as it's trying to be, though the special effects are kind of laughable. I mean, none of the aliens (aside from Barnabus) looked realistic at all. Still, I kind of liked the overall story. Kind of. At least it was an interesting concept.

It starts off in medias res during a thunder storm, with a teenager named Mike Pillsbury using a device he'd built and hooked up to his family's satellite dish, to send a message into space. He feels he doesn't belong on Earth, and wants aliens to come and take him away. The story then flashes back two weeks. Mike often tells stories he's made up to his friend Nick (Adam Wylie) and Nick's little brother, Jay. He's also forced by his dad to play on his school's football team, though Mike doesn't like it, and isn't any good at it. But he has a crush on the head cheerleader, Katelyn (Erika Christensen). He's surprised when one day she shows up at his house and asks him to help her make decorations for the upcoming Halloween dance at school. She was impressed by a prank he pulled in computer class, to get back at a bully named Scott (who is good at both football and computers). Katelyn wants Mike to use his inventiveness to make the decorations more technological, or whatever. Over the next two weeks, Mike and Katelyn bond while they work together.

But on the night of the dance, Scott and a friend of his secretly sabotage Mike's decorations, causing them to go haywire and start a fire. Mike runs home and sends the message we'd seen him send at the start of the movie. Soon after that, weird things start happening to Mike. First, he meets an alien dog named Barnabus (voiced by Malcolm McDowell), who has come in answer to Mike's call, to take him away. Later, Mike begins being approached by various other aliens who want to use him for their own greedy purposes. And they mess up Mike's relationship with Katelyn. Then one night, an alien called the Thoad kidnaps Jay and takes him back to a planet to be a specimen in his zoo. Mike comes up with a plan to get Jay back, which uses Scott as bait. When the Thoad opens a portal to take Scott, Mike, Nick, Katelyn, and Barnabus go through it as well. Scott is placed in one cell of the zoo with Jay, which resembles Mike's backyard. The others have to try to rescue Jay and Scott, as well as freeing the other specimens from their own cells.

And I feel like I've said enough about the plot. So I'll just say the movie has a happy ending. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous, but at least I could empathize with Mike's initial desire to leave the planet. It's terrible feeling like you don't fit in anywhere. But by the end, he does fit in, so that's good. And I guess I don't know what else to say.