Cut to the chase: Suffering from a bad case of poor-adaptation-itis, “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is perhaps cohesive enough for young elementary school viewers, but their grown-up chaperones are unlikely to find anything redeeming about this shallow reimagining.
Harold’s New Look
Written in 1955 by Crockett Johnson, “Harold and the Purple Crayon” has inspired young readers and their parents since its publication. The classic book’s titular character is a four-year-old boy who uses his magic purple crayon to unleash the world of his imagination. He draws the moon, a dragon, and even a hot-air balloon until he grows tired and falls asleep.
With such a broad storyline, filmmakers had unlimited flexibility and room to create a modern telling of Harold’s magical journey. However implausible and unbelievable, what they landed on was replacing the adorable toddler character with a hyper-active middle-aged man, here played by Zachary Levi, in a role very similar to his turn as adolescent-inside-an-adult-body from the superhero film “Shazam!”.
Synopsis
Eager to find the “old man” who narrates his every move, adult Harold draws a door to the real world. His animated friends Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds) join him and transform from cartoon animals to human form, a point that doesn’t translate as well as it may have read in the script.
After running them over with her car, widow Terry (Zooey Deschanel) and her son Mel (Benjamin Bottani) are roped into Harold’s impossible search for an ambiguous old man. This eventually leads them to a questionable dead-end at the Crockett Johnson Museum, where they learn that the author passed many years prior. (This film’s self-awareness, which acknowledges the existence of its book source material, is one of its many befuddling points.)
Naïve and unversed in the real world, Harold freely lends his purple crayon to whoever needs it, leading to various hijinks and a grand finale against a love-sick librarian (Jermaine Clement) lost in his own fantasy world.
Two-Dimensional Rendering
In this “post-Barbie” world, the storyline of leaving a made-up world for our real one feels unoriginal. Though “Harold” was shot before that movie, it suffered several set-backs and pushed release dates. Even so, Harold’s world and the real world are sorely underdeveloped and airbrushed beyond recognition, particularly compared to the eye-popping detail in “Barbie.”
Likewise, the characters are little more than children’s movie cliches. Deschanel plays the typical mom role, the only character with a discerning mind and eye. Moose and Porcupine are caricature humans pretending to be animals. But worst of all is Levi’s Harold, a bumbling grown adult in a comical Hawaiian shirt, wreaking genuine havoc on this small town.
In one such scene, he and Moose bring a live Puma into a supermarket and send a child flying off in a helicopter. He gives the power of his crayon to a child, which inevitably leads to him wielding its power to fight his battles. When he gives part of the crayon to the film’s villain, a Middle Earth lava park threatens to swallow everyone and everything.
Despite all of my grievances, this film has enough interesting parts for young children. My six-year-old said that she enjoyed it and found it genuinely funny. At just over 90 minutes, it isn’t too long for short attention spans, and it features plenty of visually interesting scenes, particularly all the creative objects Harold creates from his crayon.
Know before you go
MPAA Rating: PG for mild action and thematic elements
Recommended Age: 5+
Runtime: 92 minutes
Nightmare Inducers: Apart from a few mildly fear-inducing creatures, like the spider-fly with mouthful of fangs or the winged lizard hybrid that causes some property damage, but is cuddlier than it is alarming, there are not many “scary” moments for young viewers. The villain – a librarian with an overactive imagination and penchant for creating his own fantasy world – concocts a lava-world in the grand showdown that is a bit “dangerous” for our protagonists. As a foe, however, he is hardly menacing.
Difficult Concepts or Emotions: The logistics of how Harold has entered the human world and the crayon he uses to create something from nothing are more difficult for rational adults to comprehend than for children. There is some discussion of death which the young boy character describes as “no longer living”, mainly in reference to his father’s passing. His mom is grappling with a meager income, and their challenging finances is lightly referenced.
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