| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 08/04/2012 : 10:56:54
My advice to you - bring your hard-hat with you to the cinema, because you're about to get whacked over the head. A lot.
I was really expecting great things. Dr Seuss, upon whose book the flick is based, could always be trusted to be witty and entertaining and give kids something to think about before they knew they were thinking. The key word there is entertaining.
So when, in 1971, the prolific one-time political cartoonist created this tale of how the planet is being betrayed by humans and their pesky habit of unbridled, out-of-control consumerism, it seemed appropriate film material, too.
With the writing/directing team of Despicable Me and a cast headed by Danny DeVito, Zac Efron and the wonderful Betty White - what could possibly go wrong?
Uhm -- just about everything.
OK, there's some good stuff:
> a trio of adorable singing fish, with some cool movie-reference in-jokes
> the aforementioned Ms White; Danny DeV ain't bad, either
But it's the script that lets all of the air out of this balloon. Pffftttt. The cgi animation's fine - but once again, nothing is gained by 3D. Apart from the finny trio, there's nothing endearing, or dangerous - in the way that Seuss's characters frequently are. Which, of course, is what makes them irresistible to kids. Oooh - I wanna mess up the house like the Cat in the Hat ... and, then, clean it all up at the snap of a finger before mom and dad get back.
I dunno - put Universal on one side of a scale, and Pixar on the other. Tim-berrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
|
|
|
