Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) directed by Kelly Asbury
I've been so burnt out lately that I needed a throwaway movie to just rest my brain so I went with the easiest category I could think of. I think the kid's animated movie probably has the lowest batting average of any genre other than maybe snuff films. It's not that animated movies are all horrible, it's that so many of them are just utterly mediocre and forgettable. For every Ponyo or Pixar classic, you get ten Rio's and Gnomeo & Juliet's. These aren't necessarily bad films; they're just stuff that grown adults could really care less about, but little kids just eat up.
Gnomeo & Juliet is another take on Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (duh) featuring the wonderful and secret world of garden gnomes. Huh? It is a pretty bizarre concept, but sure, we can work with it. At least it's kind of an original idea. I wonder if they picked gnomes only for the reason that they could cleverly replace Romeo with Gnomeo. Anyways, as you might expect there are two families that hate each other, the house of Red and the house of Blue. Just like the Crips and the Bloods, they do not get along and often get into gang fights. One day Gnomeo meets this girl gnome Juliet and the two instantly hit it off until they find out they are from opposing families! SHOCKER! I'm not going to rehash a plot that everyone should already know so instead I will just give some general observations.
I think one of the main drawing appeals for this film is the Elton John soundtrack. There are some brand new songs and variations of some of his classics. They are pretty catchy but also quite corny when you have to incorporate the gnome elements to them, which reminds me, who thought it was a good idea to have garden gnomes as the central figures for the story? They just seem so uninteresting as objects to center a movie around. The gnomes follow the rules of the Toy Story universe where they must remain still in front of humans but when people aren't around, they can move around freely. It works in Toy Story because we always imagined our toys being real. Who ever gave a gnome a second thought?
Anyways the film is decent at what it does, mainly entertain kids, but for adults there isn't much going for it other than maybe the familiar Elton John tunes. The humor is pretty uninspired and the story doesn't add much heart or depth to it, only offering the minimum requirements to make it an adaptation of the play. The animation is decent, but also uninspired. I think much of it has to do with the ascetically displeasing looks of gnomes. There aren't any eye popping visuals to make it stand out from all the other standard CGI animated fare. Just a typically mediocre and forgettable kid's animated film.
Grade: C
I've been so burnt out lately that I needed a throwaway movie to just rest my brain so I went with the easiest category I could think of. I think the kid's animated movie probably has the lowest batting average of any genre other than maybe snuff films. It's not that animated movies are all horrible, it's that so many of them are just utterly mediocre and forgettable. For every Ponyo or Pixar classic, you get ten Rio's and Gnomeo & Juliet's. These aren't necessarily bad films; they're just stuff that grown adults could really care less about, but little kids just eat up.
Gnomeo & Juliet is another take on Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (duh) featuring the wonderful and secret world of garden gnomes. Huh? It is a pretty bizarre concept, but sure, we can work with it. At least it's kind of an original idea. I wonder if they picked gnomes only for the reason that they could cleverly replace Romeo with Gnomeo. Anyways, as you might expect there are two families that hate each other, the house of Red and the house of Blue. Just like the Crips and the Bloods, they do not get along and often get into gang fights. One day Gnomeo meets this girl gnome Juliet and the two instantly hit it off until they find out they are from opposing families! SHOCKER! I'm not going to rehash a plot that everyone should already know so instead I will just give some general observations.
I think one of the main drawing appeals for this film is the Elton John soundtrack. There are some brand new songs and variations of some of his classics. They are pretty catchy but also quite corny when you have to incorporate the gnome elements to them, which reminds me, who thought it was a good idea to have garden gnomes as the central figures for the story? They just seem so uninteresting as objects to center a movie around. The gnomes follow the rules of the Toy Story universe where they must remain still in front of humans but when people aren't around, they can move around freely. It works in Toy Story because we always imagined our toys being real. Who ever gave a gnome a second thought?
Anyways the film is decent at what it does, mainly entertain kids, but for adults there isn't much going for it other than maybe the familiar Elton John tunes. The humor is pretty uninspired and the story doesn't add much heart or depth to it, only offering the minimum requirements to make it an adaptation of the play. The animation is decent, but also uninspired. I think much of it has to do with the ascetically displeasing looks of gnomes. There aren't any eye popping visuals to make it stand out from all the other standard CGI animated fare. Just a typically mediocre and forgettable kid's animated film.
Grade: C
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