Animated Antic
I'll just get this out of the way and say that I'm not a big fan of the works of William Shakespeare's works. I think they're too complex to read and the stories that he writes are sometimes pretty uninteresting. I've tried to read a few of his most famous plays, but sadly I could never get into them. One of those plays I've read was arguably his most famous one of all, the romance "Romeo and Juliet". I've also seen a few film adaptations of it, preferably the 1967 version and the 1996 version, both of which I have oddly enough enjoyed, though it could be because I love film more than literature. Now, we have another adaptation this time with garden gnomes known as "Gnomeo and Juliet" and in all honesty, it's rather forgettable. It's definitely not a bad movie, but there's really nothing under the surface with this film. It didn't really leave much of an impact with me, and here's why.The story like I said is basically Romeo and Juliet with garden gnomes. Essentially, there are two neighbors named Montague and Capulet who despise each other and when they both go out to do their daily business, their garden gnomes come to life. To differentiate which gnomes is owned by which neighbor is pretty easy as the Montague's wear blue and the Capulet's wear Red and also similar to the neighbors, the leading gnomes of each garden (Maggie Smith and Michael Caine) hate each other respectively. I think you can guess what's coming next. The son of the Lady Bluebury, Gnomeo (James McCoy) and the daughter Lord Redbrick, Juliet (Emily Blunt) eventually meet and fall in love while trying to keep their love a secret. It's nothing really special.The movie is just bland. The story goes everywhere you expect it to go and the jokes don't really excite you or do anything you wouldn't expect to happen. They just come and go and are fairly predictable to put lightly. The characters are not especially to go wild about either. Both Gnomeo and Juliet are nice and say some funny things, but don't have anything to stand about them. Even their friends are nothing special. You have Gnomeo's friend Benny (who's modeled after Benvoilio) and Juliet's friend Nanette (who's modeled after her nurse) but both are pretty forgettable. The only character I found myself really enjoying was the character of Featherstone played by the fantastic Jim Cummings. He's a plastic flamingo modeled after Friar Lawrence and actually did have some funny things to say and I was actually legitimately touched by his backstory. Even the animation, I did find nice. It wasn't incredibly good, but it had some good detail and I did like the look of the scenery.Though out of those two things, do I really recommend watching "Gnomeo and Juliet"? Not really. It's mostly a harmless movie that younger children might enjoy, but for those that are above the age of twelve, it's a good film to pass on. There are better adaptations of the famous play out there than this and if I were you, I'd check them out instead of this film.
Eric Stevenson
This is one of the more recent Shakespeare adaptations and it's more or less the story with gnomes. In fact, that's all it is, really. I actually thought the animation was pretty nice. The main problem is that it's too short and it tries to put in too much with all this big conflict at the end that wasn't in the play. It just seems silly for a something with garden gnomes to have battle scenes. Still, I actually would recommend this to little kids because the film is completely harmless. There's absolutely nothing offensive in it.It's at least much better than "Romeo And Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss" because this film was at least animated well and it didn't have the annoying characters. Of course, it's hard to make a kid's version of a Shakespeare play. I really do like the bit where the William Shakespeare statue comes to life and comments on the story. It does make you wonder how their world works. It seems to work on "Toy Story" where they're not allowed to show themselves to humans. The Elton John music is good too. **1/2
Thomas Dinnegan
Gnomeo and Juliet is a 2011 animated adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Directed by Kelly Asbury, the film takes a new look at Shakespeare's famous tragedy, presenting it as a comical, fun-filled film aimed at a younger audience. At the beginning of the film a rather squeaky garden gnome tells us that "the story you're about to see has been told before, a lot, and now we are going to tell it again, but different". The first thing that sprang to mind about "different" was different as in good or different as in bad. This film is definitely "different" as in good! Asbury manages to bring to life the world's most adored tragedy through garden gnomes in a hilarious, imaginative and witty way. At first I thought "garden gnomes" and "Shakespeare", nah! However, after watching the film for 84 minutes (its runtime), I was a little devastated that I had to return to a world of non-speaking garden gnomes and non-existent flamingo's with Spanish accents. The film begins in the clever setting of Verona Drive, with Mrs. Montague (Julie Walters) and Mr. Capulet (Richard Wilson), two elderly neighbours who hate each other. Lady Bluebury (Maggie Smith) is the leader of 'the blues' who inhabit Mrs. Montague's garden, while Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine) leads 'the reds' who decorate Mr. Capulet's garden. Both houses (and gardens of course) hate each other and to settle this hatred, the gnomes have an annual alleyway lawnmower race- Tokyo Drift style. Gnomeo (James McAvoy), son of Lady Bluebury races Tybalt (Jason Statham), a troublesome red who hates the blues more than anyone else. Gnomeo feels that he has been cheated after the race and seeks revenge by entering the reds garden,something "never done before". This adventure leads Gnomeo into the path of the rebellious Juliet (Emily Blunt), daughter of Lord Redbrick. Both are fascinated by a beautiful orchid and they playfully fight over it before falling into a pond, where they both see each other's true colours for the first time, red and blue! The humour used in this film is incredibly witty and clever with many scenes containing laugh out loud moments throughout. When Lady Bluebury tells Gnomeo about his father, who has passed on, she says "may he rest in pieces". The camera then pans to Lord Redbrick, who is speaking to Juliet about her mother,who has also passed on, and he states "bless her to bits". When you consider the fact that both leaders are telling their kids about their dead parent, it would lead you to believe that the scene would be sad and slow; however, in contrast it is clever and quick, just like the film itself. In a scene reminiscent of Shakespeare's famous Balcony scene, the writers of the film seem not only to grasp the use of beautiful language from this scene, but they also add a tablespoon of humour to it,just for fun. When Juliet is alone, just before Gnomeo enters, she utters the line "because you're blue, my father sees red and because I'm red, I'm feeling blue". Then Gnomeo enters and proclaims that "stealth" is his middle name, before standing on a button that turns Juliet's pedestal into a singing castle, which captures the attention of the whole garden. To finish it off, Lord Redbrick enters and states that if he sees a blue in his garden again,"they'll be swimming with the fishes". The camera then pans wonderfully to Gnomeo who is hiding in the pond under Juliet's pedestal, as a fish swims by. Poor old Lord Redbrick has a tendency to mix up his vocabulary also, and after an altercation between Gnomeo and Tybalt, he comes running from his garden and asks with fierce venom "what is all this constipation?" instead of the not-so funny word "consternation".I'm sure this gave the kids a giggle. Okay, I admit it, I laughed too!The character creation in the film is marvellous. The frog called Nanette (Ashley Jensen) acts as Juliet's flirtatious, chatty girlfriend, while the hilarious pink flamingo with a Spanish accent called Featherstone (Jim Cummings) acts as a mentor of love for Gnomeo and Juliet. Matt Lucas voices Gnomeo's playful friend Benny while the incredibly slow reindeer Fawn, who is Tybalt's best friend, is voiced by Ozzy Osbourne. The casting of the actors to voice these characters is something that the film should receive great credit for also. There is an excellent balance between the powerful voices of the leaders and the playful "different" voices of characters such as the Scottish frog Nanette, the Spanish flamingo Featherstone and Dolly Gnome, voiced by Dolly Parton. In all, Kelly Asbury's Gnomeo and Juliet is a clever, witty, hilarious, imaginative film, that should be appreciated for its fresh take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and for its unprecedented ability to turn the world's most famous tragedy into a fun-filled animated film aimed at a younger audience, but that is enjoyable to people of all ages. I adored this movie and found it thoroughly entertaining and for this I award it 4 out of 5 stars. I now look forward to John Stevenson's sequel "Gnomeo and Juliet:Sherlock Gnomes".
