There are two great new movies for families to enjoy on Westside if they’re looking for somewhere to escape the intense city centre sunshine.
Harold and the Purple Crayon has multiple daily screenings at both Cineworld Broad Street and Odeon Luxe Broadway Plaza. while Kensuke’s Kingdom is showing at the Odeon daily from 12.30pm.
Harold and the Purple Crayon (PG, 90 mins). This fantasy comedy has been adapted from a 1955 book, so its history precedes the future unrelated black comedy Harold and Maude (1971) and the Harold and Kumar (2004+) stoner comedies.
Steven Spielberg once considered the silver screen potential of this particular Harold, but it’s the Brazilian Ice Age and Robots animations director Carlos Saldanha who has delivered by turning to live action for the first time.
Harold can make anything happen when he’s drawing. But, in the real world, will his imagination help him to overcome adversity?
The verdict: *** Ideal for a family-friendly summer holiday movie, the film opens brilliantly with simple sketches illustrating the power of human creativity.
Harold (Zachary Levi) is then joined off-page by characters Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tayna Reynolds), with adversary Gary (Jemaine Clement) keen to get his own mitts on the powerful crayon.
The film’s lovely moments include a splendid ‘High Noon’-style challenge to see who can ‘draw’ first, but showing a chip-sized crayon being swallowed whole feels like a risky misstep despite the immediate, scripted rebuke.
Stepping out from his trusted world of animations, Saldanha’s own journey into live action is hit and miss – which is what can happen when a Hollywood project is hit by 30 years of ifs, buts and maybes.
Complete with flashes of purple electricity, there’s a fabulous film in here somewhere that could (wishfully) have challenged Back To The Future with stronger casting.
But, by being decently watchable, if not explosively brilliant, perhaps we’ve been spared several sequels offering more of the same!
Kensuke’s Kingdom (PG, 84 mins). Talking of Steven Spielberg, it’s ten years since he adapted Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 story War Horse for live action cinema.
The prolific St Alban’s author penned Kensuke’s Kingdom in 1999 but he’s again had to wait a quarter of a century for a silver screen version, a fully-fledged animation reflecting his regular themes of peace and reconciliation.
The quality voice cast includes Oscar-winning best actor and Peaky Blinders’ star Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) alongside double Oscar-nominee Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine / The Shape of Water) as the parents enjoying a family high seas adventure of discovery.
When their son Michael and dog Stella are swept overboard, the youngster and pet wake up on a remote island where a Second World War veteran called Kensuke (Ken Watanabe) from Nagasaki has also had to learn how to trust his instincts to survive.
What the two males learn from each other – and how their spiritual journey together will end – are just two of the additional themes.
The verdict: *** Most modern computer-generated animations barely give audiences time to think. Kensuke’s Kingdom is closer to the Studio Gibhli school of Japanese filmmaking, where it’s the quieter moments which offer extra value.
The characters’ eyes are far more expressive than those realised by computer and a shooting star illustrates ‘the magic of the night watch’.
Opening with a calm, simply-drawn beginning, the film’s pivotal storm sequence swells impressively to turn a Famous Five-style ‘Adventure at Sea’ into a survival cross between Robinson Crusoe, Cast Away and The Coral Island mini series.
Now aged 80, the young Morpurgo was sent away from London during the Second World War. If you are keen for your children to appreciate resilience, this is a holiday treat complete with orangutans.
ENDS
