Inside of his book, adventurous Harold (Zachary Levi) can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the books' pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life--and that his trusty purple crayon may set off more hilarious hijinks than he thought possible. When the power of unlimited imagination falls into the wrong hands, it will take all of Harold and his friends' creativity including Mel (Benjamin Bottani), Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds) to save both the real world and his own. Can he do it and make things right?
Others to round out the cast are Zooey Deschanel as Terry, Jemaine Clement as Gary, Alfred Molina as Narrator, Pete Gardner as Detective Love, Camille Guaty as Jr. Detective Silva, Ravi Patel as Prasad, Terry's boss and Zele Avradopoulos as Ms. Hemm.
This was whimsically and humorously directed by Carlos Saldanha ("Ice Age" '02, "Robots" (co-directed) '05, "Ice Age: The Meltdown" '06, "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" '09, "Rio" '11, "Rio 2" '14, "Rio, I Love You (segment, "Pas de Deux") '14, "Ferdinand" '17) plus TV, a short and a video. Certainly when it comes to animation, this filmmaker knows his way around a production, however this film is a bit different in that it is a combination of animation and real life--and not within the same frames, but in totally different scenes in the film. He captured the look extremely well, and this has everything to do with his knowledge of the animation world. The balance between the worlds are effective and they work well off of each other. It was equally well penned by writers David Guion ("The Ex" '06, "Dinner for Schmucks" '10, "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" '14, "Slumberland" '22) and Michael Handelman (See Guion's resume), based on the children's book of the same name by Crockett Johnson. By their very resumes, these two writers are a team and that is very strategic in the eyes of the producers, since these two have the potentiality of being more cohesive. As this film goes from the animated world into the real world is actually reminiscent of the film, "The Wizard of Oz", where the character Dorothy left Kansas to enter the land of Oz. Really, other than a couple of small places of some hokiness--hey, this is a family film, the film was cohesive, sequenced well, heartwarming all with a great message of allowing one to use their imagination and of family being there for each other. This rendition of Johnson's book is a juiced up version of his work, but since the book is rather toned down, they really needed to jazz it up. The cast was believable and melded well with each other.
This is certainly a film for all to see--whether you have a family or not, since its core message is that of using one's own imagination given just about any situation. And, in this day and age with the use of ones' imagination is at an all-time low, this is definitely a shot-in-the-arm in which to encourage people to implement that imagination that we all have, but don't use. Enjoy!
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: PG 91mins
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