Festive Forays - Dr Suess' The Grinch (U)

Leave me, Max. I want to be alone.

Illumination Pictures' The Grinch is the latest incarnation of a 60-year American institution - Dr Suess' tale of a Scrooge-rivalling Christmas-hater and of how he comes to embrace the true spirit of the season. Seuss' classic children's poem - How the Grinch Stole Christmas - was most recently adapted for the screen in Ron Howard's 2000 effort, with its hairy green protagonist given a live-action makeover. Epic schmaltz colliding with Jim Carrey's rubber-faced mania. This latest Grinch retelling is big, bold and full of animated cuteness, from the people who gave you Despicable Me and Minions. For my money it's more palatable than the Howard version - though it's still a lot of Christmas to stomach.

The Grinch (as you're probably aware) is a misanthropic beast, whose mountain cave overlooks the Christmas-loving town of Whoville. So great is his antipathy towards the Yuletide festival that he plots to become what's effectively the AntiSanta, stealing into the Who residences on Christmas Eve and thieving all things festive to the last scrap of tinsel, with a view to dumping it all off a cliff-edge. 

That basic template is followed here, with a few noteworthy additions. The Grinch, for example, is a lover of gadgets, his loyal dog Max acting as Gromit to his mean-spirited Wallace. Who-child Cindy Lou is transformed from the poem into an action-heroine on a mission to meet Santa. And most significantly the film delves back into the question of why the Grinch steals Christmas - the reasons behind that heart being 'two sizes too small'. He's more anti-hero than villain, see, much in the style of Despicable Me's Gru. He's too funny and too fond of his doggie companion for the target audience not to love him. A gleefully crotchety voice performance by Benedict Cumberbatch only adds to that effect.

Children will adore The Grinch in all aspects. The animation is on point throughout - visual dazzlement is a given these days with the big specialist studios - and all of the Grinch's inventions are magnificently conceived. Max is a winsome canine sidekick and only one of numerous adorable critters; Illumination Pictures is particularly good at these, with an overfed reindeer named Fred serving as a comedy highlight. There are pratfalls aplenty and the visual humour is all judged with timing for which most live-action comedies can only wish.

As for the adults in the room, this might just be Christmas overload in a story that's all too familiar to provide genuine surprises. The Who Yuletide (Whultide?) celebrations are so colossal in scale that they rather undermining the whole 'Christmas exists in the heart' message. It's spectacle saturation, making you long for something a little bit lower key. And while the script is sound, most of the funniest bits are indeed in the trailer. (Moments involving some over-enthusiastic carol singers and an immense pipe organ do provide an unexpected grin however.)

The Grinch is a finely-tuned marvel of contemporary animation and something of a crowd-pleaser, especially if the crowd is largely young. What it perhaps lacks, due to its sheer level of technical showing-off and its determination to create the biggest bestest  animated Christmas ever, is genuine heart. Someone get in touch with Alanis Morissette - because in a retelling of the Grinch story, that's ironic.

Gut Reaction: Quite a lot of chuckling, though not as much as I'd been hoping.

Where Are the Women?: Cindy-Lou is a feisty and capable little heroine and her mom has the Christmas kitchen so under control that it'll make some viewers spit.

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. Full of technical brio and cute characters - but like last week's Nutcracker it doesn't quite achieve that classic Christmas movie status.