Gnomeo and Juliette

Posted by Mickey February - 13 - 2011 - Sunday

Right so let me get this straight. Here we have a film, largely financed by Elton John, featuring almost all of his back catalogue of music, has a cast that includes pretty much every British actor in the history of the world including Ozzy Osbourne and a cameo from Hulk Hogan (WTF?) and is a bastardisation of one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies retooled to reach the ‘family audience’. How does this thing not suck?

In the main, this can be attributed to the confident direction of Kelly Asbury. Having previously taken the reins of Shrek 2, it’s clear that he knows exactly how to handle parodies without being too heavy handed. It would have been extremely easy for this film to descend into a stupid slapstick parody only aimed at kids and boring everyone else to tears, but instead the jokes end up being evenly paced and even when the jokes misfire (which is infrequent) there’s always a funnier line coming up shortly to make you forget the stupid pun. A prime example can be seen in the trailer where James McAvoy’s Gnomeo loudly announces ‘let’s kick some grass!’. This unfunny gag is then swiftly followed up by a great visual gag involving Matt Lucas’ Benny. this pattern repeats several times in the film where some of the more kid-pandering moments are followed up by jokes that hit the mark for the wider audience.

Of course a large amount of the credit for this has to go to the writers of which there were 7, including Asbury himself, and it’s important not to understate how hard they work to make the film accessible and entertaing to both young children and adults. It’s also key to the films success that they manage to acknowledge and pay respect to the original tragedy instead of just ignoring that whole aspect of it. Indeed the original ending of the play is referenced in an extremely amusing cameo from Patrick Stewart who plays a brass statue of Bill Shakespeare himself who warns Gnomeo things might not end well for him. Eagle eyed viewers should keep a look out for several references to other well known Shakespeare characters and plays, my personal favourite being the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern moving compa

The real charm of the film, however is the supporting characters. By and large Gnomeo and Juliet are fairly forgettable stock hero/heroine types but what really brings the film to life are the background characters that flesh out both the warring groups. The highlights here are a Pink flamingo with a tragic backstory (Jim Cummings) and a ceramic reindeer voiced by Ozzy Osbourne. The only true weak point here is the aforementioned Benny (Matt Lucas) who, in spite of several great moments, sometimes comes across as a bit too one note, but fortunately he’s usually removed from the equation just before he becomes too tiresome.

It should also be noted that if you don’t like Elton John, it’s probably going to become an issue at some point. The soundtrack to this film is not subtle and intrudes on the film on more than one occasion. Most of the time it fits the mood, but every now and then it becomes both intrusive and stupid. A particularly jarring moment occurs when Gnomeo first meets Juliet and the music sets an odd tone.

Ultimately, though this film is an extremely pleasant surprise. It’s safe to say that my expectations going into this were exceptionally low and i expected nothing more than a flamboyant vanity project from Elton John. Instead what you get is a surprisingly accomplished, witty and most importantly entertaining film. It handles it’s subject matter with equal parts affection and parody and is definitely well worth catching if you can.

Overall rating: Win