If you’re going to take a work of Shakespeare and rework it for what will be the gazillionth time in popular culture, you’re wasting everyone’s time if you don’t have something to say or add to the proceedings. On the surface, Gnomeo & Juliet seemed like it might have a new idea for the classic saga of two tragic, star-crossed lovers; unfortunately, what you see is exactly what you get. The thought that went into Gnomeo & Juliet seems to have stopped once they figured they’d use lawn gnomes to play out the story. From there on out, they just plugged in a soundtrack by Elton John and leapt headfirst into the long abandoned Dreamworks comedy mold for the Shrek franchise: fill it up with pop culture jokes. The result is an empty mess that’s almost offensive to children’s intelligences.
It feels silly to sit and explain the basic story of Romeo and Juliet, but Gnomeo & Juliet follows the blueprints of the Bard’s original including the prologue. It’s all the same, two houses at war over an age-old conflict with the violence of the conflict manifesting in the younger members of each family. In an act of chance, Gnomeo (James McAvoy) and Juliet (Emily Blunt) discover an attraction to one another when neither can tell the other is a member of the opposing household. The attraction buds into a romance and before long the lovers are forced to choose between their families’ legacies and their love for one another. Tragedy ensues.
Filling in between the basic plotpoints is a greatest hits album from Elton John and more bad jokes than I’ve seen in a children’s film since Bee Movie. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the truly stellar cast assembled for the film: McAvoy, Blunt, Michael Caine, Matt Lucas, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Ozzy Osbourne, Stephen Merchant, Patrick Stewart, Julie Walters, Hulk Hogan, Dolly Parton, and Ashley Jensen. In any other situation, I think the voice cast would make me fall in love with the film instantly and hold it up as an example for casting in future animated films – but somehow even this fails. McAvoy, Blunt, and Statham fit in their roles easily, but for everyone else it’s far too distracting having them pop up. As you try to place whose voice that is, you’re taken out of the film. That’s not an uncommon thing in animated features, but it’s even more problematic here because the writing already makes it hard to stay involved in the story.
Films like Gnomeo & Juliet remind us just how desperate Hollywood has become for creating films it thinks will market themselves. Everyone loves Shakespeare or, at the very least, everyone is forced to read Shakespeare in school, so making a film about lawn gnomes acting out Romeo and Juliet is like cashing in on one of the most famous franchises of all time. Or so they thought. In attempting to add in a bunch of jokes to make the story more palatable for its youthful demographic, they removed any and all of the charm of the original story, turning it into a soulless marketing gimmick.
Also, does the love of tacky lawn ornaments extend further than retired people in Florida? And even if it does, does it extend to children? Do kids like lawn gnomes? Does the average adult like lawn gnomes? The closest thing I can imagine adults liking is Keebler Elves, and even then they have to supply cookies.
The animation for the film is its high point. Where everything else fails, the CGI used to bring the gnomes to life and create their world on the lawn is nothing short of top-notch. The film looks great in hi-def, but that won’t matter because the story and dialogue will have you turning it off 30 minutes in.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The DVD and Blu-ray combo set has quite a few extra features like featurettes on Elton John’s music and how it inspired portions of the film, Ashley Jensen’s voice acting, and Ozzy Osbourne’s signature mumblings and how it fit with his character of a lawn deer. The rest of the set is padded with a Nelly Furtado and Elton John music video, alternate endings for the film, and deleted scenes.
"Gnomeo & Juliet" is on sale May 24, 2011 and is rated G. Adventure, Animation, Comedy. Directed by Kelly Asbury. Written by Andy Riley & Kevin Cecil and Mark Burton and Emily Cook & Kathy Greenberg and Steve Hamilton Shaw and Kelly Asbury. Starring Hulk Hogan, Jason Statham, Jim Cummings, Matt Lucas, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant, Ashley Jensen, Ozzy Osbourne, Julie Walters.
