Yes, I can relate to you regarding your admiration of Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon (I happen to gift this book to every new baby in my family with a purple crayon with its front cover). But I must clarify that the idea of a film adaptation has always left me with almost a sense of apprehension. This is mainly because of the dismal histories of attempts made to adapt most of the great works of children’s literature that have come before it. His work towards the movie was able to remain faithful to the texture of the original book which a lot of people, children and adults696 alike enjoyed. Unfortunately for every one of those, there’s something like that absolutely horrible live-action rendition of that book. That catastrophe of a film can quite easily be declared as one which was the antithesis of the original Dr. Seuss work.
This time it is “Harold and the Purple Crayon” live-action feel which has grace the prescreens. In fact, the beginning is the best part of the movie, and accurately so–an animated recap of Harold’s journeys from the book in 2-D animation. Not being entirely accurate, the sequence does recreate the visual style of the book and has the fantastic voice of Alfred Molina. Sadly, that sequence lasts roughly a minute and a half, and the real story begins right thereafter. Everything descends–no other word is possible–to the nadir of gory Melm though of a script which can simply be called Jumanji is scattered–at best. There is no creativity in the whole of the film except fancy dress and more fancy dress. There is an endless run time in such movies.
So after watching that recap of the original story, we see a grownup Harold now being played by Zachary Levi together with his friends Moose who is Lil Rel Howery and Porcupine who is now Tanya Reynolds still moving with the Voice-Over. But one day, there comes a moment when the Voice-Over is no more and Harold makes a decision to fully use his fancy crayon to unlock a portal which allows the three of them to look for him. However, the outside world is weird and complicated for them, so sooner or later Harold and a now human looking Moose but turns back to cartoon form on his whims comes across Terri who is the mother and Melvin whose a son around middle school still grieving over the loss of Mel’s father. For no apparent reason whatsoever she brought them in allowing them to spend the night at her place and Harold thought Mel was just like him crazy and also possessed an invisible ‘pet’ which is half eagle half lion and half alligator and his inviting him on the magic crayon. (For the record, Porcupine has become all separated from the others and is off causing her own kinds of minor destruction.)
Terri has gone to work at an establishment who is well regarded in the film than Johnson’s book–Ollie’s. While Mel assists Harold and Moose locate the narrator which leads to a series of cartoonish events where they fly in a plane or create chaos in the grocery store. They also ask for help from a peculiar librarian named Gary (Jermaine Clement) who is a Terri’s admirer and a frustrated writer of a terrible fantasy book “The Glaive of Gagaroh” (as if that wasn’t enough this film managed to insult the followers of the ‘Krull’ as well). Slowly, Gary grows close to Harold and tells him that he is indeed a book character, which pushes Harold, Moose and Mel on a quest to find Crockett Johnson and meet him. Google does provide the location but oddly does not explain why the whole journey could have been avoided. As for Gary, after experiencing the crayon’s power, Gary plans how to get it for himself and create the world of his book in reality.
It has always been a dubious proposition to attempt to turn the 64-page comic book of Crockett into full-length feature film.
Yet, even the most pessimistic of minds could have foreseen something as bad as this. To begin with, Harold himself has had the misfortune of appearing as one of the most irritating screen characters in quite a while due to the ironically brutal screenplay of David Guion and Michael Handelman who attempted to reshape him into a reckless free spirit, somewhat like Buddy from “Elf.” He, however, manages to only make him annoying to an unimaginable degree. The situation is exacerbated by Levi’s regrettable performance, which strives for appealing cuteness all the time, but never quite succeeds. After all, who in their right mind would say that Levi was just a tad bit bonked over the head with a plank before every scene? And how long did it take for director Carlos Saldanha to ever be pleased with himself so much that it took him a million takes to say ‘that’s a wrap’ when even Kubrick would have suspected something? And then the film had a troublesome storyline that lacked fluidity, dull visuals, the stereotypical overreliance on CGI for the grand set-pieces, extremely poorly crafted dramatic scenes that didn’t carry any sufficient depth, and finally, the idea of a movie where children’s stories should have reigned supreme only sees a librarian as the antagonist. That’s just absurd.
Before you voice your discontent towards my position for not analyzing this movie from a child’s perspective, based on the evidence available, all no one had even the slightest interest in taking children’s audience into the consideration in any possible way in terms of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” It is unfortunate but seemingly it was more important to score a few bucks from families already having watched Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 and looking for some other film than to actually live to the legacy of the aforementioned IP Sadly, this is Krooman’s view of Harold and the Purple Crayon. This was not about children’s emotions being developed appropriately. The movie looks great! It does! But that’s not the point. That wasn’t the aim. It’s terrible. My son thinks it’s bad and I don’t disagree with him because I understand that there is nothing interesting for kids above the age of three. Every parent dreams of a good show that captures their child’s attention. I must inform you that this movie is not intended for children. If there are any loving parents or relatives in this movie, I am sorry for them. Do not take your children to this coma-inducing bore. You will do a world of good by making them read and then watch Crockett’s surprisingly brilliant creation and his subsequent masterpieces.
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