Bottom Line:
Watch it.
Details:
[Minor spoilers.]
It’s been quite a long time since I’ve done a movie review. It’s also been a while since this movie came out. But I think it’s a great film, so I’m glad to still share my thoughts on it.
So, I didn’t really want to watch this movie when it first came out. I thought it was going to be kind of cheesy and definitely for little kids. It just didn’t seem to appeal to my usual animation loving self, so I didn’t go to the theatre. I didn’t rent it from RedBox. But when I found out it was on Netflix, I decided to give it a try.
The end result? Moderate surprise. Intellectual stimulation. Laugh-out-loud hilarity.
Let’s take that one at a time.
First of all, the moderate surprise. The movie starts out telling you exactly how many times Romeo and Juliet has been told. And how this is not that story. Wow. One point for the home team. I was glad it wasn’t a rehashing of the Shakespearean tale. I mean, granted, yes this is really based on Romeo and Julie, but they take it out of context and apply it to a different kind of character, who lives in a different world, with a different set of rules. Oh, and there’s a happy ending. Thank goodness. (I mean, this is Disney, after all.)
And the intellectual stimulation? Okay, maybe stimulation isn’t the right word, but this movie is smart. As the movie begins, you notice that the human characters that own the warring gardens live at 2B Verona drive. Both mail boxes have 2B written on them, but one of them is crossed out. Ha. Nanette, the frog and Juliet’s best friend, grabs a sock for Juliet to disguise herself with. As she heads down from the clothesline, we see a shirt with a picture of Kermit the Frog on it. Double ha. The laptop is not an Mac (Apple), but a….banana. HAHAHA.
*Ahem*
Lastly, we have the laugh out loud hilarity, as glimpsed above. Above anything else, this movie was funny. My favorite part was when Gnomeo was chatting with the statue of William Shakespeare, who was telling him all about Romeo and Juliet. Gnomeo told him it had a stupid ending and ran off to make sure that he and Juliet could be together. One of my favorite characters was Featherstone. He was so adorable and I loved his accent! The best part was when his legs popped off and Gnomeo was surfing him all the way to the fence gate. And what about the ridiculousness of the entire movie? How there was a toilet in the middle of Montague’s garden, or that the gnomes had to freeze whenever a person looked at them, or even the fact that they raced on lawn mowers?
So, yes, I highly recommend this movie. It’s great for kids – they’ll enjoy the music and the likeability of the characters. But I think parents and adults will like this as well. It’s fun to see how many Easter eggs you can spot!
Have you seen this movie? What did you think of it?
