Review of Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) by Jordan F — 26 Feb 2013

"Two star crossed lovers", echoes in the stage opening of another Pixiar affair in the form of lawn accessories animating secretly to live life without falling to pieces. The opening Prologue gives a tribute to Shakespeare with lines directly from his "Romeo and Juliet".

This introduction asserts to the original prologue as a reference for the parents while dramatically interrupting it as boring and lame to our children. I feel like all of the references to Shakespeare were contradicted in this fashion but it didn't trouble me enough to take up arms on Shakespeare's behalf and boycott this movie.

As far as the plot goes, the two feuding houses are cleverly separated in suburban duplexes owned by Mrs. Montague, an elderly woman with an affection for blue and Mr. Capulet; an old man of similar character with a fixation with red.

Naturally, their possessed lawn ornaments also exert a similar rivalry and the garden Gnomes especially are up in arms to prove who has the better garden. Lord Red Brick (Michael Caine) and Lady Blue Brick (Maggie Smith) are the leaders of this Bloods verses Crips Westside Story in Wales and though they despise each other passionately, it's never really clarified how exactly the feud started.

This I found interesting, because Shakespeare never made the origins of the feud known in his original score either. But reasoning doesn't go beyond the exciting music numbers, by Elton John that were in my opinion few and too far between.

I really enjoyed the idea of this movie. Unfortunately the dialogue wasn't up to toy story standards and the jokes stayed really simple. Admittingly, I did read ahead and notice that 14 plus writers were on the line up and because of that, had high expectations.

I also took into account that this movie had a 36 million dollar budget so I expected to giggle at something cleverer than a sneaking gnome announcing that he "loves to go commando". Additionally I don't find it very amusing that in the tradition of "Toy Story", any characters that showed a hint of ethnicity were displayed as non-human like as possible.

The staring cast showed much promise giving me more than one reason to force myself to want to like this movie. Jason Statham known for being a professional Hollywood badass in such works as "Revolver", "Transporter" and "Snatch" played Tybalt.

James McAvoy from "X-men First Class" played Gnomeo. Juliet was voiced over by Emily Blunt, known for her roll in "The Devil Wears Prada" and we can't forget Michael Caine, the official British movie badass.

I want to image that such a great cast would of grindhoused this thing into pure Blood verses Crip entertainment, but they keep it conservative. There were some attempts to keep us at the edge of our seats with a bombardment of suspenseful scenes including fragile gnomes carelessly hoping on platforms and senselessly preforming unnecessary stunts.

Now don't get me wrong. I love action and probably have invested countless hours in action platform games like Megaman 1-8. But seriously, within the first 30 minutes I just wanted Gnomeo to just get it over with and accidentally smash himself to pieces.

Similar things do happen in action films but this was pretty excessive. I didn't have the liberty of viewing this movie with a kid, but I'm sure they would have been equally annoyed. On a positive note this movie was unmistakably British, which has a tendency to make bad writing sound more comical and eloquent.

That in combination with this being an intensely bright animated picture with no dull moments and voice overs from cool people, makes this a movie worth watching. Worth watching under two conditions of course, either as a kid younger than 6 or not sober.

As a disclaimer I must tell you to not watch this movie under both of these conditions. In closing if you want Shakespeare animated, watch one of the BBC's creepy claymation versions. Elton John sells everything and don't give drugs or alcohol to minors, even if they tell you they need it to make it thru this movie.