Quick Synopsis: Remember the book? It’s not like that.

I’ll start this by being brutally honest about my opinions on the original book: I don’t like it. I’ve never liked it. I’ve always had a very specific issue with a line in it. There’s a moment in the book where the author says that a person who has good thoughts can never be ugly, and if someone is ugly, it’s because they’re a shitty person. As someone with a face that looks like the “before” picture in an advert for “You’re a lost cause, just slice off your entire face”, you can see why I’d have an issue with this. I don’t need books to insult me; I have myself for that. So I went into this not expecting to love it. Coupled with that is the fact that almost every review of this was highly negative, so my expectations were so low that even limbo dancers would refuse to go under it.

Now I know what people expect: that this is a setup for me to say “However, I liked it”. Nah, fuck this movie. It’s not the worst of the year, but it should be very thankful for films like War Of The Worlds. Actually, that’s cruel and implies this will end up in the Awful section for the end-of-year roundups; it’s actually probably going to go in the one above it. It’s not absolutely terrible, but it’s definitely not good. The main problem is the script; the original book is roughly 100 pages, if I remember correctly, which isn’t enough story for a feature-length movie. So the writers have to stretch it out. Phil Johnston has a weird career as a writer; he wrote Zootopia, which was great, The Brothers Grimsby, which was okay, and Wreck-It Ralph 2, which was bad. The Twits isn’t his best work; it’s incredibly unfocused. It doesn’t flow organically, instead coming off as a series of shorts. There’s not a central narrative; it’s just stuff happens, then different stuff happens. Some of the “episodes” are better than others. The Muggle-Wump part feels like it comes from something completely different, and not in a good way. The build-up to them entering the mayoral elections is pretty fun, though, with some political satire that’s so sharp you can cut steak with it. Thing is, it’s not saying “these political thoughts are bad”, it’s saying “voters need to stop believing obvious bullshit, a mayor can’t make everyone in town a billionaire”. But even that plot point is ruined by a truly juvenile (even for a kids’ movie) fart joke.

One other upside is the casting. Johnny Vegas is an obvious choice as the male lead. I didn’t expect esteemed character actress Margo Martindale to work as well as she did. I’m guessing she was hired here because of her work on Bojack Horseman. Emilia Clarke and Natalie Portman are weird choices for such small roles; tonally, it feels odd to have their voices in something so deliberately ugly.

Make no mistake; this is an ugly film to watch. I get that that might be the point, but the animation is so off-putting that it’s not a pleasant experience at times. It looks like a (much) cheaper version of the shiny elastic CGI animation that most companies use, which is fine when it works, but here it doesn’t. Narratively, this is like most Dahl adaptations; it works best when it’s slightly cruel. There are times it manages that: key among them is when a family arrive at an orphanage to say they won’t be adopting anybody because they’re worried a recent disaster has made the kids contagious; it’s so cruel, and wickedly funny.

That’s somewhat negative, truth be told; most of this review has been. But there’s something oddly charming about it. It’s a shit adaptation, I’ll give it that. So fans of the original are sure to hate it. But fans of the original are adults now, so it’s not really for them. But who is it for? Are there many kids clamouring for an animated adaptation of a book they haven’t read? Does Johnny Vegas have a large toddler fanbase that Netflix wants to tap into? Fans of the original book will hate it, and there’s nothing to bring in people who aren’t fans of the book. So again, who’s it for? That’s a question I have no answer for, and I’m not entirely sure the people involved in making this know the answer either. Somehow, the music is weirdly solid. Well, the song from Hayley Williams and David Byrne is anyway.