Harold and the Purple Crayon – Film Review

Director – Carlos Saldanha
Writers – David Guion, Michael Handelman, Crockett Johnson
Stars – Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani, Zooey Deschanel, Jemaine Clement

We meet Harold ( Zachary Levi) in animated realm, along with his friends Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds). Another unusual individual in their world is “the Narrator” (Alfred Molina), a ghostly voice that explains what is happening to the characters. When the voice disappears one day, Harold sets off to try and find him! Using his magical crayon, he draws a portal to another realm, the real world…

The book ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ was written by Crockett Johnson and first published in 1955. It became a modern classic and spawned 9 sequels including Harold’s Trip to the Sky (1957) and Harold at the North Pole (1958). They all featured the loveable child-like Harold and his magical crayon. There was a TV show based on the book in 2001 which ran for 23 episodes. It is a natural for a film adaptation and the only really surprising element is that it took so long!

The premise of this movie is that a fictional character is transported into the real world… and hilarity ensues! Surely this is an original concept? No, not really, it’s a standard of kids’ movies. At their best, you have films such as Barbie, Splash and Elf, but there are a multitude of others of varying quality. There’s always a scene where they struggle with modern technology, and they nearly always get arrested, along with a list of other similar tropes.

There are some good actors in the film with Jemaine Clement known for What We Do in the Shadows and Flight of the Conchords. Zooey Deschanel has also had an interesting career, from her musical experiments with M Ward to films such as (500) Days of Summer to the TV show New Girl.  Zachary Levi has also developed a niche for himself as a leading man with Shazam! Despite the variety of talented actors on display, the source material of the writing lets them down. There is very little original in the film and at times it falls a bit flat. It is clearly aimed at a younger audience, who will enjoy this simplified tale of good guys and bad, along with the animated madness of the crayon itself. The best of these moments are largely delivered by Jemaine Clement, with his side story of a frustrated fantasy writer who works in a library. He becomes thr villain of the piece and his self-absorbed notions and lusting over Terry (Zooey Deschanel). Maybe this side story should have been the focus of the film instead?