How the Grinch Stole Christmas: "Tomorrow's Christmas, its practically here"

"T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." I'm 100% confident saying that there is no person alive with access to literature who doesn't know of Dr. Seuss and if for some reason you don't, THEN YOU HAVE NO CHILDHOOD. The stories are iconic while still being simple, each with a story to tell and a lesson to learn in a style that no one can replicate and an art style just as unique. However, his stories haven't really transferred well to the silver screen recently with one of the first of the new wave being The Grinch (Its called that here, I'm sticking by that name as I'm reviewing the movie, I don't know why the Australian version is like that, I just know it is for some reason). Is the Grinch one of the better ones, or just as bad as the later films?

I'm not going to go into the story because I'm almost certain that you dear reader will know of it, but the story itself does transfer well into cinema and what was added still does, for the most part, fit in with the message that Dr. Seuss was telling in the original story. There are somethings that I don't think were needed, like with The Grinch's back story, it wasn't needed in the original story and even here I don't think its needed as its not important to the main story. It also adds other sub plots and messages that I think detract from the main message. While the scene is well done, as I said, it wasn't needed in the main movie.

Dr. Seuss' art style is unique, you can look at a Seuss image and recognize who drew it, but that art style, while faithful in the film, sticks out and looks out of place as the movie is live action. The world itself looks good, its the characters that don't. The Who's just look awful in regards to their face designs and make up. The only character that actually looks good is The Grinch himself as the costume is really well done. To add to it, the Carry looks like he isn't restrained by the suit (in comparison to Cat in the Hat's costume) leading to some comical scenes.

Music: The instrumental works well, but the forced songs for the sake of having a song really brings down the film, the actor who plays Cindy-Lu can't sing and to make it worse, the actor isn't that good. While child actors aren't good in films more often then not, there's bad and then there's painful and Cindy-Lu Who is PAINFUL! The other actors do an ok job but nothing spectacular. The Narrator of the film tries to replicate Seuss rhyme, but it's a 50/50 success (quotes from the story being the success) Jim Carry as The Grinch though I love his performance in this, when he's given a strong enough script, you can get some great performances out of Carry and this is no exception, he works with the suit and some of the lines he gets, like when he's in the post office, genuinely give me a good laugh and is the sole reason why I like this movie.

While the movie itself isn't anything spectacular, considering the source material, its one of the better adaptions of Dr Seuss books to film in the last decade. Like with the later films (and other similar films), the book is the better version of the story. It is almost the end of the year, so next week, lets take a look back at the year that was for the two sites.

Oh, and by the way, GLASS LIGHTS DON'T WORK THAT WAY!!!