Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024) Review!!!

Synopsis – Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life.

My Take – In a time where studios are looking to mine everything and anything to cash in on the recall value of the paying audience, it is surprising that it has taken this long to turn their eyes towards late author Crockett Johnson’s 1955 children’s picture book (despite at one point having Steven Spielberg and Will Smith attached).

A book which is considered a modern classic and spawned 9 sequels, all featuring the lovable Harold, a child who can create whatever he can imagine, as long as he draws it with his magic purple crayon. There was even a TV show back in 2001 which ran for just 23 episodes.

What I was mostly curious was about how writers David Gurion and Michael Handelman would be able to pull a 90-minute feature out of a book intended for the smallest of children?

Combining live-action and animation, the film serves as a sequel to the original book and in the hands of director Carlos Saldanha (Ice Age: The Meltdown, Rio, Ferdinand), the result is a charming family flick that is sufficient in quantities. With enjoyable PG comedy, the film takes all of the innocence of the book and unleashes it onto the real world, while providing plenty of lessons for the world to hopefully learn.

However, the tone is drastically and jarringly far more serious than had been hinted in the marketing. The awkward style is perfect for laughs, but in terms of the perfection, some of the composure that are seen in other similar films is missing.

That being said, fans of the book will no doubt recognize moments and nods to the original story, and its positive message about the power of imagination is indeed universal.

Beginning with a delightful prologue, the story then follows an adult Harold (Zachary Levi), who is still hanging out in a purple world with his friends Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds), guided in their adventures by the omnipresent ‘Old Man’ Narrator (voice by Alfred Molina). That is until, one day the Narrator goes suddenly silent.

With a resolve to find him, Harold ends up drawing a door to the real world, where he befriends a pre-teen Mel (Benjamin Bottani) and his widowed mother Terry (Zooey Deschanel), who offer a place to stay while they search for their creator.

As they unintentionally wreak havoc in Terry’s life, a local librarian and self-styled author Gary Natwick (Jemaine Clement) realizes Harold is actually the character from the famous children’s book and plots to steal the magical crayon in order to bring his own awkward and overly complicated literary world to life.

As one would expect, the setup is an extremely basic but effective scenario to explore the value of imagination in a world that lacks it, as well as a clear set-up for plenty of slapstick shenanigans. Like scenes where the protagonists struggle with modern technology, and nearly always get arrested, along with a list of other similar tropes.

Writers David Guion and Michael Handelman clearly understand that their primary goal is to entertain through storytelling, not to incessantly self-reference for kids too young to know what the word continuity means. Director Carlos Saldanha, an animation veteran who helmed the “Ice Age” franchise and the “Rio” films, keeps the story moving with light humor and fun visuals sprinkled throughout.

With the imaginative animation over the live-action shots being the film’s highlight, as Harold can still create anything with his purple crayon in the real world. With more colors and dimensions to play with now, he draws everything from a plane they fly over Rhode Island to Mel’s imaginary pet, which is some sort of dragon-lizard hybrid.

However, the whimsical world the film creates seemed destined for so much more though, but ultimately, and ironically so, just lacks the necessary creativity to truly be magical. Though the final confrontation between Harold and the antagonist comes closest to showcasing the vast potential of the purple crayon.

But for most of the run time, the film seem to lack the creative range of book-version Harold, and doesn’t utilize its most exciting element, the purple crayon of limitless power, often or inventively enough. Also, and this may be nitpicking, the film’s emphasis on the crayon itself seems contrary to the central point of the book.

In the book, the purple crayon was a regular crayon, and the true power to create endless worlds and adventures was in the imagination. In the film, the crayon itself possesses power (even if imagination is still required to unleash it). At times, the film even hints at some interesting deeper themes and messages, yet it’s rarely able to fashion its various squiggles and ideas into a clear picture.

Performance wise, Zachary Levi proves he’s exactly the right person to convey the naiveté of a man-child discovering the world for the first time, and his charisma is a suitable centerpiece with his big reactions and dopey smile. A role he has similarly played earlier in Shazam! (2019) and Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023). Benjamin Bottani understood the assignment completely, proving to be a great child actor with a bright future ahead of him.

Surprisingly, Zooey Deschanel is given very little to do, while Lil Rel Howery feels slightly miscast, as Moose seems written to be more dimwitted than he can convincingly pull off. Tanya Reynolds, seems to be having the most fun of all as she gamely skittering around the screen with feral abandon and marveling at the possibilities provided by prehensile thumbs.

Jemaine Clement is a sincerely funny villain. Alfred Molina as the reassuringly mellifluous narrator is firmly in his comfort zone. On the whole, ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ is a charming enough family flick that doesn’t fully deliver on its imaginative potential.