Harold and the Purple Crayon is a cynical, rote adaptation of a children's classic has enough charm to balance its lack of imagination.
, from a conceptual level, is about as cynical as Hollywood filmmaking gets. The film is a meta-sequel to a picture book with a target audience of kindergarteners, latched onto a scrap of intellectual property in the desperate hope that the brand recognition will draw in an audience of non-existent rabid fans and, more importantly, their average of 2.5 children.
Levi is an actor of limited talents, but he’s exactly the right person to convey the naiveté of a man-child discovering the world for the first time, and his charisma is a suitable centerpiece with his big reactions and dopey smile.
The group finds itself relying on the hospitality of single mother Terri and her son Mel , throwing a wrench into their lives as Harold uses his magic crayon to impulsively and impractically assist them. It’s an extremely basic but effective scenario to explore the value of imagination in a world that lacks it, as well as a clear set-up for plenty of slapstick shenanigans.
And Jemaine Clement as Gary the Librarian is a sincerely funny villain. Clement excels at overconfident losers, and this failed fantasy writer who writes his self-insert hero with an unpronounceable name is certainly an amusing foil to Harold’s love of creation for the sake of creation.
There are too many cut corners to this trim 90-minute film to consider it novel in any sense, but there are also too many entertainingly committed performances and well-written jokes to consider it entirely soulless either.doesn’t quite provoke the blues that one might expect from such a crass-sounding adaptation, but neither does it paint the town red with its modest ambitions. We’re left mixed, as purple as the crayon.
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