The Grinch is a timeless tale, we've all heard, read or watched it at some point in our lives and it has touched many, many souls over the years. Depending on how you feel about it, it's a tale about someone learning the true meaning of Christmas, or a tale about someone opening his heart to others, or a tale about the commercialisation of Christmas, maybe less so that last one, but whatever the reading, it's a story that's as great now as it was sixty years ago. However, it being a short picture book makes it a bit difficult to adapt into a feature length film, an issue that the previous adaptation of the story; Ron Howard's 2000 film starring Kim Carrey faced. When I first heard that the studio behind Despicable Me was taking a swing at it, I was cautiously optimistic, fully expecting that it'd suffer from many of the flaws of the 2000 film, but at least be visually appealing as Illumination films usually are, and be wholesome and cute enough to be enjoyable, I've certainly liked some of their films in the past, after all. I've got to be honest though, when the film started and I realised that Pharrell Williams was narrating, my hopes waned a bit.
Something that's blatantly apparent is the film's presentation, because just like I expected, the film is really pretty; it's colours are explosive and pleasant, it's design is cute and appealing, it's certainly nicer to look at than the Ron Howard film, which I always thought was kind of dull and ugly. The two films couldn't be further apart in their presentation; Ron Howard's film looked dirty, whereas this film is squeaky clean, a good metaphor for the kind of films Illumination pump out, but regardless of that fact, they at least know how to make a film look good. But then there's the more annoying things about the studio, like their use of music and humour in their films, just take for example the Grinch song with plays during our introduction to the Grinch. In the Ron Howard film, the song is used while he's building his sleigh, but here it accompanies his morning routine, and the song itself is bad, I'm not a musically minded person, I can't explain the intricacies of a good or bad song, I can just tell you that I don't like it. Nor for that matter do I much care for Pharrell Williams as the narrator, simply because of how Illumination it is, and how much of a downgrade it is from the Ron Howard film being narrated by Anthony Hopkins. I know I've brought up the previous Grinch a lot already, but there's another thing I think that film did better, and sadly, that's the Grinch himself.
This film's Grinch is voiced by the one and only Benedict Cumberbatch, which is great, but far from being downright malicious like Jim Carrey's Grinch, Cumberbatch's Grinch is just a bit of an arsehole. Sure, there are moments of him hurting the people of Whoville, and his entire plan is inherently steeped in malice and vengeance, but he's not incapable of being nice to people, he's particularly kind and loving to his dog, Max, by Grinch standards at least. Later in the film he finds a new minion in Fred, and then actually lets him spend Christmas with his family, which is uncharacteristically nice for the Grinch. One thing both films have in common is the Grinch hating Christmas because of a bad experience, and while I think Jim Carrey's Grinch snapping because of bullies was more grim, Cumberbatch's Grinch's reasons for hating Christmas are, I think, a lot more safe, and both films make the mistake of making you understand why the Grinch hates the Whos because in both films, they're so damn annoying, and for similar reasons. Part of what makes the Grinch so appealing as a character is the simple truth that Christmas, for all of it's peace on earth and goodwill toward men, can be really annoying. The relentlessness of Christmas music, the overabundance of lights, it's annoying, and luckily I don't have anyone in my life as aggressively festive as the Whos in this film, but if I did, I would hate them, which I guess makes me a Grinch.
While this Grinch isn't quite a malicious monster, he's likable for a more mundane and relatable reason, he just wants to be left alone; a lonely life has left him bitter towards the Whos, and he's grown up just wanting them to go away and let him be in peace. His bitterness comes from his childhood in an orphanage, never having any family or friends to celebrate Christmas with, which is a pretty safe but effective justification for his hatred of the holiday. I don't mind this to be honest, but I do mind how heavy handed the film is with its themes. One very annoying thing about Illumination is how they can't seem to convey a message without beating you over the head with it, and The Grinch and it's themes of isolation and loving thy neighbour is no exception, with the film making, very, very liberal use of its miscast narrator, not to mention the entire Cindy Lou subplot, which is even more heavy handed about the true meaning of Christmas and appreciating who and what you have, which obviously ties back into our main story of the Grinch learning to love Christmas again. That Cindy Lou subplot though, my god. I get that adapting a short story into a film isn't going to be easy, but taking the focus away from the Grinch to pad it out with a story of a little girl wanting to help her overworked single mum isn't a good solution. It's not like this is a long film either; it's less than an hour and a half long, but even then, it really struggles with pacing. 
It takes The Grinch an hour to get to the stealing Christmas part, you know, the point, and the lead up to it feels less like build up and more like filler as Cindy Lou and her friends form their plot to capture Santa, which obviously interferes with the Grinch's plan to steal Christmas, and the film really tires to make this story as cute as possible, but all the cute moments of the film go to the Grinch and Max, with the exception being the scene where the Grinch and Cindy Lou talk. At first, this scene made me smile, because it wasn't overly obvious what was going on, thematically, but in swoops the narrator to explain it to us. I know that The Grinch is a book that's aiming for a young audience, but this film is clearly aiming for a family audience, it doesn't have to be so on the nose, yet it is, and the entire subplot of Cindy Lou helping her mom never actually gets a meaningful payoff. All the payoff naturally goes to the Grinch, who has a genuinely heartfelt moment where he apologises to the Whos for trying to ruin their Christmas, in fact, most the film's ending works really well, as he awkwardly attends the Whos' Christmas dinner and finally embraces the spirit of Christmas, and then an annoying meme and insufferable end credits song spoil the moment. Because I guess Illumination doesn't think its enough to just have a quiet moment, or even go five minutes without trying to be hip and fresh. 
Pharrell Williams as the narrator doesn't work, referencing a meme that was already years old may make a child laugh, but I'm a jaded 22 year old who sees that shit for what it is. It's one thing to be safe, which all Illumination films are; they'll never make a Coco or an Up or a How to Train Your Dragon, but they'll never fail to make a Cars or a Trolls, I digress. It's another thing entirely to actively pursue an avenue that the film makers and studio types just don't understand, which is why memes and slang in movies literally never work, but at least it's not The Emoji Movie. The Grinch also uses a lot of Christmas music, a lot, which isn't very surprising, and some of it's really good; I'm particularly a fan of the film's version of 'Zat You Santa Claus, but me and me mates sing Louis Armstrong for shits and giggles, so what's new. And since I haven't directly addressed it yet, the scene where he steals Christmas is admittedly pretty sweet, the best scene in the film by a mile, and in other positives, a lot of the film's visual humour is pretty funny, be that slap stick and basic, or less obvious things like the kid who was sad he couldn't play with his toy boat on the frozen pond. Again, Illumination's films are like this, all of them are mostly unremarkable, but they've never made an outright bad film, and with all its shortcomings, I'd actually say this is the best of them overall.
Time to Steal Christmas
The Grinch is fine, I feel as though I'd have a lot of nostalgia for it had I seen it as a kid, just like I do for the Ron Howard film. Like that film though, it has problems, big problems; a lot of the film is boring bloat, trying to fill a feature length runtime with an unremarkable and pointless parallel story about a little girl, which isn't done as badly as in the Ron Howard film, but The Grinch's story was so elegant and simple that practically any addition to it will feel like a foreign organ. The Grinch as a character isn't bad, and occasionally the film hits some good beats thanks to the odd good joke or subtle moment, and it's visually very nice and appealing, but this is a film coming from the McDonalds of animation studios, it's good, it's fine, but it's not special or memorable, and like the Big Mac, it's execution is messy. Still, if you've just stuffed your face with turkey and mash and now you want to follow it up with a Christmasy film for the whole family, The Grinch will get the job done.
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