Mark Reviews Movies: THE GRINCH

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 9, 2018

Nobody knows why the Grinch hates Christmas. It's never explained in the text of Dr. Seuss' book, one of his most well-known, thanks to an animated TV movie, which has become a holiday broadcast staple, based on it. We don't need to know why, either. We simply need to know that he is mean and angry, as well as the fact that might only find happiness if he can cause holiday misery in the little town below his mountain home.

The only thing we really ask of an adaptation of the character's Christmas heist is that the character, whose name has become a word for those who hate the holidays, is mean, angry, and only happy when plotting or executing a plan to ruin Christmas for others. The Grinch—the third movie adaptation of the Seuss story, the second animated one and feature-length one, and the first one to use computer animation—doesn't understand that. It gives us a Grinch who's partially unfriendly, partly a joke, and mostly miserable.

At least Michael LeSieur and Tommy Swerdlow's screenplay doesn't give us a kinder, gentler Grinch. It does, though, greatly undercut the devious fun of the character by turning him into something more akin to a tragic antihero. This Grinch hates Christmas for a reason, and it's a rather depressing one, too. We have little time to hate the Grinch or find perverse enjoyment in his misanthropic exploits. Rather quickly, the movie wants us to sympathize with him as a perennially lonely and self-loathing creature, who's only annoyed by the joy of others because his own potential for having joy with others was denied to him.

There is something to this re-interpretation of the character, and a movie that actually cared to explore it with any sincerity could have been intriguing. That's not this movie, though, which re-tells the basics of Seuss' tale with this neutered version of the Grinch and a philosophy of expanding the story that mostly involves adding comic setpieces. If the simplicity of Seuss' story allowed for a firm understanding of the Grinch, the various complications, subplots, and back stories of this adaptation leave us wondering if there's any of the real Grinch left in this story of the Grinch.

The Grinch here is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who dismisses his signature baritone for a generically nasal-heavy vocal performance. It's the first sign that this interpretation of the character isn't going to be the obvious villain of Seuss' story. Other signs include the fact that he's an "emotional" eater (having eaten everything he has stored to avoid going into town during the holiday season), a trip into the town of Whoville that has him pulling some pranks on the local Whos (Most of them result in mild inconveniences), and, most importantly, a flashback that shows him as a child, alone in an orphanage while everyone in town celebrates Christmas. The excesses of this year's Christmas celebration in Whoville lead the Grinch to his plan to put an end to the holiday.

At this point, the movie simply becomes busy with an assortment of comedy sequences that primarily result in pratfalls and other kinds of slapstick. The Grinch, deciding to impersonate Santa Claus to steal the presents and decorations from town, tries to wrangle up reindeer for his sleigh. After a running gag involving a screaming goat, he finds a big reindeer, which leads to nothing, except a couple of jokes that have to do with how big the reindeer is. There's a chaotic sequence of the Grinch sending his loyal dog Max into Whoville, with the dog attached to propellers and a camera on its helmet.

It's a lot of action for its own sake or, more likely, as an excuse to extend this story without thinking of ways to develop its themes or its characters. The same goes for the movie's version of Cindy Lou Who (voice of Cameron Seely), the little girl who catches the Grinch in the act of stealing Christmas. Here, she has a single mother (voice of Rashida Jones), and Cindy has her own scheme in mind: to catch Santa and ask him to make things easier for her mom. This extended and ultimately fruitless subplot gives the filmmakers chances for additional montages, comic business, and gags involving contraptions to go along with the same stuff with the Grinch.

To be fair, directors Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier, along with the animators, do stay true to Seuss' art style with The Grinch, while giving it the polish of 3-D animation. The movie does too much polishing in every other respect, though—adding so much that it all but eliminates the charm of Seuss' story.

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