IGOR [PG]
review by Howie Green

Somewhere along the way, the makers of the new kids’ animated film Igor lost their way. Borrowing heavily from both Tim Burton’s goth style and sensibilities, this seemingly innocuous horror romp is filled with disturbing characters and dark humor that are completely inappropriate and unsettling for the film’s target audience of young kids. Seriously, what parent is going to want to expose their wee ones to a main character that is constantly trying to commit suicide? And when Igor’s monster creation turns out to be a self-involved actress all the jokes and humor about her will be totally lost on young kids. “Igor” is too freaky and off-center for kids and too simple for adults and will hopefully disappear before anyone even notices it.

Voiced by John Cusack, Eddie Izzard, Sean Hayes and Steve Buscemi, the main characters in this film all live in the land of Malaria which was once a sunny farm country filled with happy peasants until a permanent bank of clouds rolled in. Once the clouds covered the land, Malaria sank into a deep depression that was lifted when the King invited all the mad scientists in the world to come and live there and be free to create and display their evil creations each year at the annual Evil Science Fair. While the rest of the world watches on in fear and horror, the King demands payment from all the other lands for which he promised not to unleash the evil creations. This is a kids’ movie?

Malaria’s evil scientists all have their own Igor servant/assistant whose main job in life is to simply pull the switch. When the film’s main Igor’s master is killed in a wayward experiment, Igor, who has been secretly planning an experiment of his own, decides to hide his master’s death and enter the upcoming Evil Science Fair with his own monster. However, due to a mix-up during the monster’s brainwashing, she thinks she is an actress, not an evil monster. Meanwhile Igor’s two assistants — a suicidal bunny rabbit and a character made from a brain and some junkyard scraps — find that the King has actually been creating the cloud cover, turn off his machine and return the land of Malaria once again to the sunshine and banish the Evil doers.

Normally when I attend screenings in theatres packed with parents and kids there is a huge round of applause and cheering at the end of the movie. It was very telling that at the end of “Igor” there was complete silence as the audience quietly filed out of the theatre. Don’t be deceived by the ads you are probably seeing on TV. “Igor” is not a movie for small children — or anyone else, for that matter. Like an entry in the Evil Science Fair, no good could possibly become of the misfire that is “Igor.”•••

Howie Green is a regular contributor to EDGE.