Gnomeo & Juliet
Review
by Anthony Morris
|
|
|
Gnomeo & Juliet
|
|
Yes, Gnomeo & Juliet is a one-joke film. And it's not that great a joke. But this re-telling of the Romeo & Juliet story using garden gnomes turns out to be, if not all that funny, then at least a lot of fun to watch. You
know the story : two warring families (in this case, the gnomes and
other garden decorations of neighbours who hate each other) are
perfectly happy just shouting insults and having the occasional
lawn-mower race in the back lane.
That is until son of the blue
queen (the voice of Maggie Smith) Gnomeo (James McAvoy) and daughter of
the red king (Michael Caine) Juliet (Emily Blunt) meet. At
first they don't know they're rivals (she's in a ninja outfit made out
of a sock so she can steal a flower from another garden, he's camo'd up
for a stealth raid on her side of the fence), and by the time they do
it's too late : they're in love. What follows isn't exactly
the same as Shakepeare's tale - though the Bard himself does make an
appearance (in statue form) to explain how things are meant to happen -
so you needn't worry about taking the kids to a story that ends in a
double suicide (the ending instead features a killer lawnmower). You
won't be confusing this CGI effort with a Pixar film any time soon and
there's not a lot of really stand-out moments here, but - thanks in
large part to the strength of Shakespeares original story - Gnomeo & Juliet's never dull and often a lot of fun. The
musical numbers by Elton John don't slow things up too badly, the
character designs are cute, the romance is kind of sweet and hearing
Jason Statham voicing a garden gnome is pretty much worth the price of
admission on its own. Best of all, despite a load of
Shakespeare jokes, the gnome puns are kept to a minimum : there's only
so many "Just chillin' with my Gnomeys" jokes anyone can take. 2.5 out
of 5
Gnomeo & Juliet
Australian release: 17th February,
2011
Official
Site: Gnomeo & Juliet
Cast: Jason Statham, Emily Blunt, James McAvoy, Michael Caine, Maggie
Smith, Patrick Stewart
Director: Kelly Asbury
|
