Imagine being worried that the new Grinch film will besmirch the good name of "the original" and meaning the Jim Carrey version. Apparently, the Grinch as interpreted by the Minions makers is at a risk of somehow being less dignified than the one where the Mayor of Whoville sucks on a dog's anus.
Little known fact: the character actually originated in a Dr. Seuss book called How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was adapted into an animated short film with Boris Karloff. As strange as it may sound, the essence of this Christmas story was not originally ass humor. I don't know how many people know that.
In The Grinch, Benedict Cumberbatch is The Grinch, and The Grinch is a mean one. Why? Because of the noise and holiday cheer emitting from a small Christmas-obsessed town, called Whoville, situated below the hill he lives on with his dog. Both locations -- Whoville and the mountain -- are inside a snowflake, by the way. I'm still waiting to see Grinch and The Whos face their inevitable doom in the sequel, Apocalypse Snowplow.
Worth mentioning, however, is that Grinch is no longer all that mean from the start. Rarely has something been so indicative of our current state as the idea that we needed to tone down the Grinch a little; make him more of a regular, if cranky guy because God forbid we ever relate to a genuinely flawed and cruel character, especially in a child-friendly film.
Let me further illustrate how much hipper and cooler this movie is with the Zillennials than the original cartoon. There is no narration by Karloff; that honor instead goes to Pharrell Williams. The song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" is performed by Tyler the Creator instead of Thurl Ravenscroft. I couldn't make this up as a joke. I mean, I could do that; it's just that Hollywood would already have done it non-ironically before I got to the punchline.
Do I need to elaborate on the plot? You all know the stuff where The Grinch eventually dresses up as Santa to take away all the decorations and Christmas gifts from Whoville, i.e stealing Christmas. But there's more. Of course there is. The movie can't very well be just forty minutes, can it? Much like the Carrey iteration, this one elects to more deeply explore Grinch's origins, to see why he's such a grump all the time.
The cast includes Cameron Steely as Cindy Lou Who, Rashida Jones as Cindy's mother, and Keenan Thompson as the "happiest Who" in the village. Angela Lansbury now voices the Mayor of Whoville.
Admittedly the film is more visually inviting than the last time Grinch got a feature-length outing (not to mention Cat in the Hat), but even when the designs are transferred from the land of Dr. Seuss, Illumination Studios manage to make everything tediously generic to look at. Their films are so inoffensive, yet so perfectly manufactured that they will always get their money back through sheer cute factor (plus merchandise, which always goes well with a story that used to be about the vacuousness of materialism), not that they're known to spend that much money or effort to begin with.
Little known fact: the character actually originated in a Dr. Seuss book called How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was adapted into an animated short film with Boris Karloff. As strange as it may sound, the essence of this Christmas story was not originally ass humor. I don't know how many people know that.
In The Grinch, Benedict Cumberbatch is The Grinch, and The Grinch is a mean one. Why? Because of the noise and holiday cheer emitting from a small Christmas-obsessed town, called Whoville, situated below the hill he lives on with his dog. Both locations -- Whoville and the mountain -- are inside a snowflake, by the way. I'm still waiting to see Grinch and The Whos face their inevitable doom in the sequel, Apocalypse Snowplow.
Worth mentioning, however, is that Grinch is no longer all that mean from the start. Rarely has something been so indicative of our current state as the idea that we needed to tone down the Grinch a little; make him more of a regular, if cranky guy because God forbid we ever relate to a genuinely flawed and cruel character, especially in a child-friendly film.
Let me further illustrate how much hipper and cooler this movie is with the Zillennials than the original cartoon. There is no narration by Karloff; that honor instead goes to Pharrell Williams. The song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" is performed by Tyler the Creator instead of Thurl Ravenscroft. I couldn't make this up as a joke. I mean, I could do that; it's just that Hollywood would already have done it non-ironically before I got to the punchline.
Do I need to elaborate on the plot? You all know the stuff where The Grinch eventually dresses up as Santa to take away all the decorations and Christmas gifts from Whoville, i.e stealing Christmas. But there's more. Of course there is. The movie can't very well be just forty minutes, can it? Much like the Carrey iteration, this one elects to more deeply explore Grinch's origins, to see why he's such a grump all the time.
The cast includes Cameron Steely as Cindy Lou Who, Rashida Jones as Cindy's mother, and Keenan Thompson as the "happiest Who" in the village. Angela Lansbury now voices the Mayor of Whoville.
Admittedly the film is more visually inviting than the last time Grinch got a feature-length outing (not to mention Cat in the Hat), but even when the designs are transferred from the land of Dr. Seuss, Illumination Studios manage to make everything tediously generic to look at. Their films are so inoffensive, yet so perfectly manufactured that they will always get their money back through sheer cute factor (plus merchandise, which always goes well with a story that used to be about the vacuousness of materialism), not that they're known to spend that much money or effort to begin with.