Gnomeo and Juliet movie review

God dammit in hell.

I just can’t help it! An animated movie gets released, and I just have to see it!
And it certainly doesn’t help that I figured how to get a massive discount on any children’s film and I can get in for virtually free.

So that’s my excuse, that’s my excuse for going in and actually watch “Gnomio and Juliet.” One of the first movies on my list of movies I wont support in the year.

And that being said.. I want to apologies and retreat my statement that it shouldn’t be supported.. because this movie.. quite honestly. I enjoyed it, I thought it was rather good. I was emotionally involved, I was shocked a couple of times and most of all, I laughed a lot.
So there really can’t be no arguing, I liked this movie.


Hm, I think we should try and make an experiment here, lets try and look at the things that got my warning lights blinking back in January when I made my list.

Well first of all, it’s about fucking gardening gnomes re-acting the tale of Romeo and Juliet.
What I expected at first would be all these gardening gnomes make really immature nasty jokes while occasionally making an Shakespeare reference, and of cause our two nauseating sugar sweet protagonist can’t have each other. And that would have been what I expected.

And actually.. they do indeed re-act Romeo and Juliet, following the same basic plot.. well simplifying it of cause, but the interesting issues are still there, and it’s done pretty well.
For crying out loud Tybalt actually dies! I am dead serious, well it shouldn’t be a spoiler that the character dies in the original play. But that the gardening gnome Tybalt gets smashed into a wall and breaks into a thousand pieces… That is harsh man. And then all the red gnomes chases Gnomeo for revenge until he lands on a motorway and gets stuck to a car, so all the remaining character are left to presume that he is dead as well, including poor Juliet, while he is stuck in the other end of town.

And then as he is stuck the two families (The red gnomes and the blue gnomes.) get ready for serious battle, and there are smashing in their eyes.. it actually gets pretty damn grim.

I mean, the movie actually builds it well, as the feud itself starts out being cruel but harmless but then it builds and builds and builds, until the ending battle where it’s very grim, where both side thinks they have lost a person (died for crying out loud.) As you can tell, the urge for Gnomeo to get back is very real.

Of cause, as this is a kids movie and we only need following the Don Bluth formula “Darkness and angst in children’s movies are okay, as long as you attach an happy ending.”

And as we all know, the real Romeo and Juliet does not have an happy ending.. and I don’t think.. No the families never get physically involved like that in the play, but that being said it is an effective plot device, it fells natural and further the story.

And it also really brought a smile to my lip, that before the ending battle, right before the start.. the movie actually addresses this ending issue, as when Gnomeo have been played football with by a bunch of kids he ends up on the top of the head of a shakespear statue. And he tells the statue his entire story.

And the statue goes. “Hey! That sounds like my story!”

And Gnomeo naturally response. “Really, well how did it end?”

“They all die muhahaha!” …. Well okay, shakespear statue didn’t say that, but he might as well could have, he just described the real Romeo and Juliet ending while gleeing over the beautiful tragedy.

And honestly, that right there seems to be a very good compromise to me.
See the problem with the movies as “The page master.” Is that they wanted to pay tribute to these litterare classics, but failed to tell why any of these things are classics. Never do the audience get an insight to captains Ahab’s obsession over the white wale moby dick, never did the audience get a glimpse of the duality in Long John Silver, the dreaded pirate whom no one can trust. What happened in that movie, was visual references not tributes, and chances of people getting curious and checking out the source material seems very slim.

Here however, it shouldn’t wonder me if some kids gets really curious and would want to check out the source material.
They would be disappointed of cause, as Romeo and Juliet by no means is light reading, but on that some note, that fact a lone makes me sort of happy that a younger audience can familirise themselves with the classic tale this way. Because now they would know it! What’s it about, even how it really ends.

It’s actually kind of brilliant.

I know, I know.. it sounds like I am praising the movie to the skies.. and of cause this isn’t bloody beauty and the beast.
But it’s also very harmless, have the heart in the right place.. and yeah. It’s actually really good. I personally liked it better than tangled.

And I know.. I know.. I am the only one in the universe not going nuts of “Tangled.” But I still just don’t like it. I just don’t.

Hell, a ton of people out there probably don’t like “Gnomeo and Juliet” in the least, me however. This was a very pleasant surprise!

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In other news! Here is an animation movie I do look very much forward to!


Guillermo del Toro, working together with Jim Hensons puppet company, to create a version of Pinnochio that looks like something out of Tim Burtons early years! hell yeah!

http://www.deadline.com/tag/pinocchio/

This looks absolutely gorgeous to me! not the mention absolutely fascinating and my kind of movie!

That being said... Del Toro claims this to be darker than the Disney movie... my answer. Not bloody possible! the Disney version of Pinnochio is in my opinion the darkest childrens movie ever, and it honestly scared me out of my wits as I was a child, it honestly did made me cry and it honesly did give me nightmares.. And I still can't watch the scene where kids is turned into Donkeys while calling for their mothers without being incredible disturbed.

Okay, so the blue fairy is going to be a dead girls spirit, I honestly don't care, she's a magically being. have the kids turn painfully into donkeys as if it were a werewolves transformation, while they call for their mom, afterwards to see them be burn marked and kicked into the fold, as we are left the impression they are going to spend the rest of their life in labour as donkeys, wishing they had never given in to temptation.

Then Del toro, then we can bloody talk.