U, 90 mins
A good heart — even one that is two sizes too small — isn’t hard to find in the charming computer-animated retelling of Dr Seuss’s seasonal fable from the makers of Despicable Me and The Secret Life Of Pets.
Co-directed by Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier, The Grinch is an early Christmas present crammed to bursting with cute critters, slapstick and bountiful community spirit.
The film screens with a delightful Minions animated short entitled Yellow Is The New Black, which follows two goggle-eyed hench-creatures as they become bystanders to a hare-brained jailbreak.
If the gobbledegook-spouting duo don’t steal the hearts of young audiences with their antics, the excitable reindeer and eager-to-please dog which bound through the snow-laden frames of The Grinch will.
A trim running time and crisp visuals in retina-searing colours of the season should jingle the bells of families looking to sweeten the bitter taste left by The Nutcracker And The Four Realms.
Michael LeSieur and Tommy Swerdlow’s script retains some of Dr Seuss’s rhyming couplets word for word in the dramatic set-up and sentimentality-drizzled resolution, but deviates noticeably in a slickly executed yet saccharine mid-section, which now boasts a screaming goat and an excitable reindeer with a penchant for aerosol whipped cream.
The mayor of the faraway town of Whoville (voiced by Angela Lansbury) decrees that this year’s Christmas celebrations should be three times grander than usual.
Everyone rejoices except for The Grinch (Benedict Cumberbatch), who lives in a cave overlooking the town with his trusty pooch, Max.
The Grinch despises the festive season as a result of childhood trauma. The green-furred curmudgeon resolves to poison Whoville’s holiday cheer by dressing as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and stealing the town’s decorations, trees and presents.
Narrated by Pharrell Williams, The Grinch is engineered to the same winning formula as other animations in the Illumination stable.
Visual gags are largely restricted to pungent puns on brand names: the eponymous anti-hero douses himself in Mold Spice.
Casting Cumberbatch in the title role, then asking him to adopt an American accent, is nonsensical, but the London-born actor teases the dual aspects of his character’s gnarled personality.
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DS