Directed By Carlos Saldanha

Starring – Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Zooey Deschanel

The Plot – Inside of his book, adventurous Harold (Levi) can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life, and that his trusty purple crayon may set off more hilarious hijinks than he thought possible. When the power of unlimited imagination falls into the wrong hands, it will take all of Harold and his friends’ creativity to save both the real world and his own.

Rated PG for mild action and thematic elements.

HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON – Official Trailer (HD) (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Where the movie unfortunately disappoints as an adaptation, it more than makes up for in ambition among imagination, utilizing the many endless possibilities with wonder and excitement that serve as a much-needed shot of adrenaline for a movie continuously driving on empty. This is where the film feels most faithful towards its literary novel, capitalizing on a gimmick in ways that are distinctly unique towards this particular property, all the while instilling a nourishingly subtle message to youthful audiences that successfully materializes without taking too much focus away from the primary storytelling, urging them to dream big, even when society tells them to stay on paper. While the artificial effects work does leave a bit more to be desired, especially in the heft and believability of the way they influence the natural sets surrounding them, the escapism simply can’t be understated, resulting in a mostly breezy and light-hearted atmosphere that novel author, Crockett Johnson, would wholeheartedly subscribe to. In addition to the film’s imagination factors coming to fruition, the performances aren’t half bad from a noteworthy collection of gifted ensemble members all effortlessly subscribing to the fantastical approaches of their respective characters. For Howery and Tanya Reynolds, this is most appropriately summarized, as they’re not only forced to convey animalistic actions to human captivity, but also instinctual expressions that play seamlessly to the fish out of water perspective that encapsulates so much of the movie, earning each of them ample time to express the familiarity of their animalistic designs, without sacrificing the personality in either that we’ve come to expect and appreciate in the extent of their respective work. As for Zachary Levi, the warmth from his childlike admiration for the real world is only surpassed by the buckets of heart he imbeds to the integrity of the character, and while the difficulty of approaching a character so surrounded in nostalgic appreciation comes with difficulty in finding a satisfaction level from the audience, Levi captivates with an unbridled energy that clearly has a lot of respect for the property, and it comes across in a portrayal that feels directly lifted from the pages of Harold’s manifestation.

NEGATIVES

If it isn’t strange enough that the film serves as a sequel depicting Harold now as an adult, the script does very little to finding a comfortable consistency for the storytelling, which feels completely void of any semblance of originality, especially with a central plot involving a fish out of water protagonist, who is forced to live and adapt to life in the real world, but in turn being the voice of clarity that many of its people needed. That idea lends itself to so many movies, but a lack of originality keeps the focus on those predecessors, not only keeping the movie from ever finding a unique voice of its own to simultaneously appeal to new generations while reappraising the adulation from those who grew up with the novel, but also making it difficult to stay invested or even appraise value to the stakes in the film that feel continuously miniscule. Because of such, the film feels like a series of short skits, instead of one cohesive narrative, where Harold, with his crayon in hand, continuously writes himself out of certain predicaments that surmise, with little to no impact on him or the ensuing world, despite many inexplainable things happening quite literally out of nowhere. Because the film is limited with an 85 minute run time, the various characters and subplots have little room to properly play-out, such as an unnecessary antagonist quite literally coming out of nowhere because he looks and acts weird, or even why Moose and Porcupine turn into humans when they transfer into the real world, but other imaginative creatures don’t, or a lack of rules pertaining to the crayon, and because the script entails such little effort, it doesn’t need to even waste time with explanations, especially because most audiences use the excuse that kids movies aren’t supposed to be intelligent. Even further than this, however, the film is a bit hypocritical in its inspiring message, with our protagonists mocking a fantasy writer, all because his imagination and insecurity feels so different from theirs, which in turn made unintentionally cheer for Gary, who the movie forcefully goes over the top in mocking and vilifying. On top of a sloppily dull and unoriginal screenplay, the film’s humor falls directly flat in every opportunity that it can muster, with the worst kind of child humor that will immediately alienate adult audiences from finding something compelling with the material to match their children. In fact, if not for the energy and commitment that Levi frequently unloads to these punchlines, the film wouldn’t have conjured a single solitary laugh in the duration of my 85 minute engagement, but even those rare few abrupt reactions couldn’t alleviate the overwhelming silence that proceeded to hang overhead, leaving so many scene transitions awkwardly enacted with emphasis towards a punchline that rarely, if ever, properly materialized. ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ also isn’t a movie deserving of being picked apart by the technical merits that make up its presentation, but the combination of spotty, on-the-nose score and trigger happy editing obscured so much of the interpretation and magic of its idea, undercutting the appeal of imagination during sequences that it so obviously depended on to carry the film. Between compositions that inscribe little to the obvious interpretation, and the film’s fantastical sequences being edited to look like a war movie, focus isn’t something that comes easy to the engagement, and considering so many of the sequences are plagued by horrendously cheap looking computer generated effects that outline the artificiality in every cause, tangibility becomes an undefined antagonist of its own within the film, with even artificial ice cream summoned to a budget that apparently couldn’t make purple ice cream on its own. It’s also a film that fails miserably in capturing the profound sentiment of the source material, with a sharply contrasting third act into dramatic territory that the movie not only doesn’t earn, but also doesn’t effectively muster. As to where so much of the film, even forcefully, depended on humor, this sentimental touch of Harold finding his creator abruptly surfaces in order to fool audiences into thinking that it attained a merit of heart, serving as the catalyst to a sacrificial third act climax that proves the movie is far too gone to be saved, at that moment. Echoing this, the film moves on, with little to no corresponding impact, towards its inevitable confrontation, and though it does eventually circle back with the film’s closing moments, I wish it spent more time pondering those profound questions of existentialism, especially with so many kids movies today exploring a deeper subconscious than those the adult audiences of this movie were fortunate enough to grow up with.

OVERALL
‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ colors an energetically imaginative canvas, with an infectiously charming childlike performance from Zachary Levi, at its disposal, but little else between a hollow and unfocused screenplay with no originality to its concept. While the film promotes an ambitiously inspiring sentiment to its audience, its execution feels counterproductive, leaving only a shallow and hypocritical adaptation of another popular children’s novel, whose writers and producers tragically overlook what made it such an endearing adventure in the first place.

My Grade: 3/10 or F+