Director: Kelly Asbury
Writer: Andy Riley, Kevin Cecil, Mark Burton, Emily Cook, Kathey Greeneberg, Steve Hamilton Shaw, Kelly Asbury (Screenplay)
Starring: (Voice Talents) James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Ashley Jensen, Michael Caine, Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham
Plot: The neighboring gardens of Montague and Capulet are at war, but the gnomes, Gnomeo and Juliet, are in love.
Tagline – An epic tale on a tiny scale.
Runtime: 1 Hour 24 Minutes
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Kids Will Enjoy
Story: Gnomeo & Juliet starts as we learn about two rival gardens, the Montagues and the Capulets, one has blue gnomes the other has red gnomes and they are at war when the humans are not around. Gnomeo leads the assaults from the blue side while Tybalt attacks for the reds.
When Gnomeo goes out on a solo mission he meets Juliet, a red that has been sneaking around only for the two to fall in love. Can their love bring an end to the war between the two sides.
Thoughts on Gnomeo & Juliet
Characters – Gnomeo is the leader of the blues he is doing everything to fight for his garden, until he meets Juliet and falls in love, he must continue his fight while trying to stay on Juliet’s good side, risking everything. Juliet is the daughter of the reds, she is forced to stay safe even though she wants her own adventure, she meets Gnomeo and the falls in love wanting to end the war from her side. We do get plenty of Shakespeare based characters with the aggressive Tybalt being the most interesting of them all.
Story – Here with this story we get another example of Romeo & Juliet being told, the waring families and forbidden love, only with gnomes and garden ornaments. The love story is fine, one we know and can learn from no a problem, the bigger problem comes with the idea of this wanting to be Toy Story with garden ornaments, but they just don’t seem to care if they upset their humans, even though when humans see them they stop. You need to focus on one side and this just felt like something we have seen before with too many puns.
Comedy/Family/Romance – The comedy is mostly garden puns, which can work at times, but like most puns has you groaning at times. We could see families learning from this which is good to see a proper message to people and the romance is what we know from Romeo & Juliet, you can find love in unlikely places.
Settings – The film takes place in the gardens which have their own designs, this works for the film and makes this enjoyable to see the different designs people have for their gardens.
Animation – The animation can’t be faulted here, everything looks the part with no problems for the audience to see.
Scene of the Movie – That Pixar moment. Though this isn’t a Pixar movie.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The characters not caring about the destruction to the gardens while also not wanting to be seen moving by humans.
Final Thoughts – This is an enjoyable family film, it tells a simple story with moment soft peril and puns all around, it is generic in its telling of the story and has a few funny characters.
Overall: Family film night sorted.
Rating
