Harold and the Purple Crayon Review

I think I had higher hopes for this movie than most. Not because I was particularly attached to the property, I mean I remember reading it when I was at the age to do so, but growing up I was more of a Wolves in the Walls and Life Doesn't Frighten Me At All kid. (Yeah that's right. My parents got me hipster picture books when I was three and were totally cooler than your parents.) But the teaser was kinda cool. I begrudgingly like Zachary Levi, pretty much just because he plays Shazam. Sure, the actual trailer was dumb, but the second trailer always sucks. 

What's The Movie About?

Harold and his friends Moose and Porcupine travel to the real world to find out what happened to their world's narrator. 

What I Like.

The opening animation with baby Harold was very cute, and I like that his world gets more detailed as he grows up. I like the characters I guess. The villain was kinda cringe-worthy but the fact he was a hack fantasy writer was pretty funny. I like Terry. She seemed like a character that would get super upset at every inconvenience, but I felt like she reacted like a real tired single parent. I dunno, I really related to her. There was some fun ideas for set pieces, and the music was nice. I like the scene where Porcupine was running from the police set to fast piano music. The movie was pretty fast paced in general.

What I Didn't Like.

But maybe it's a little too fast paced sometimes. Like the inciting incident seemed like the characters were just jumping to conclusions, and it feels like characters make decisions or change their minds just because the plot needs them to. Harold loses faith in his abilities and everything he drew with the crayon starts to disappear, but it's not because he found out he's a fictional character, like I expected. It's because his creator died, which I totally don't get why he'd get disillusioned from that. The plot is sloppy as a whole. They separate all the main characters right away, and most of the movie is rapidly switching between the characters trying to meet back up. It also seems to drop or forget plot points at random. Harold meets a kid who he gives half of his magic crayon to in the beginning, and after that scene it only really comes back up at the end of the movie. The movie also feels really cheap. I normally wouldn't complain, since movies can be good no matter how much money they spent on it, but when the premise is the main character is a Green Lantern but purple (so a Star Sapphire fnar fnar fnar) then you should probably get the money for decent effects. This movie has some tonal whiplash as well. There's only like two serious moments, but they suddenly come out of nowhere and jarringly resolve. Also, sometimes the jokes go on for a few beats longer then they should.

Final Summation.

Harold and the Purple Crayon feels like someone wanted to make a deep and impactful kids movie but someone else was holding them back. Either that or someone just wanted to slap together a kid flick and noticed the highest praised ones have a deeper messages and tried to fake it. True, a lot of what I complained about I might be able to forgive for a kids movie, so here's the real test: Did the annoying kids that were sitting a couple rows behind me in the theater ever get captivated enough to stop screaming at all during the movie? No. No they did not. So I guess it's not a good movie.