#81 - How The Grinch Stole Christmas – (84%)

This is the live action version of this Dr Seuss story not the cartoon from years ago which was then made into a cartoon a few years back which too me is difficult to realise why they keep making up the same story just in a different way. You could argue the case that this version is exactly the same, why remake it? Well that would a difficult one to answer my best assessment would be that the original cartoon from back in 1966 was just 25 minutes long. Someone could of thought this is a great story we have to give it more so let’s make it feature length and make this something more than could be squeezed into less than 30 minutes. Well that I can see but I will leave that up to you to make up your own mind. Please bear in mind that I have not seen the latest 2018 version of the story. This version stars Jim Carrey, Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Baranski, Bill Irwin, Molly Shannon with Anthony Hopkins Narrating. Directed by Ron Howard who is a fantastic director in my opinion and James Horner doing the musical score who again I hold in the upmost respect. Produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard with the screenplay by Jeffrey Price and Peter S.Seaman who are the duo who worked together on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Doc Hollowood and Wild Wild West. The critics were a bit sniffy with this movie with IMDb score of 6.2 out of 10 whilst Rotten Tomatoes giving it a very middle of the road 50%. Box office wise it created $345.1m from a production budget of $123m which has to be seen as a success.

Do you need a plot with this? Probably not so I will just give you an overview as this version give you a bit of a back story that wasn’t in the book. The Whos who live in Whoville are similar to humans with a much cuter facial appearance and munchkin like children and live in an overly kind world where everyone loves each other. Years before a young green who was abused by his classmates for being green and hairy. This makes this Who vengeful against the entire town of Whoville. Seeing that the entire population of Whoville love Christmas, this little Green Who called The Grinch decides he is going to ruin Christmas by stealing everything to do with it. From the presents, to the trees, to the decorations… EVERYTHING with the aim of stealing Christmas completely. How will he manage it? And how will the Whos cope if he does succeed?

Well I think I have cut into my own section with the earlier sections. I would recommend that you read my review of Drop Dead Fred as this will comparison as this was a perfect vehicle for Jim Carrey’s loonacy which would have been perfect for Rik Mayall also. Where this worked and ‘Fred’ didn’t is that this was an American with a American story and I don’t think the British element worked. Rik was unknown in the states when released where Jim had a successful track record of being a zany character in big Hollywood movies. This movie was made for him and for me it was a perfect match. There are so many scene’s that have been turned into meme’s or clips used here or there. It is a great vehicle for the Jim Carrey show when he was in his hey day of just being crazy and funny. I loved Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty and they worked just for him. I think that Mr Mayall could have had that success if he broke into the states but I am not taking anything away from Jim and his success. Fair play to him and I enjoy this movie. To think that Cindy Lou is all grown up and singing half naked as a the lead for the rock band Pretty Reckless. Does and always reminds me that I am old. Anyway for a light hearted Christmas funny story of the green monster that tried to destroy Christmas this is one of the best. Go enjoy!

Next up is an 80’s comedy that inspired two sequel movies about two boys that just want to have some fun…