Igor looks around for Tim Burton but can't find him.
(MGM) Starring the voices of John Cusack, Molly Shannon, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Sean Hayes, Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Coolidge, Jay Leno, James Lipton, Arsenio Hall. Directed by Anthony Leondis
We all want to be the center of attention. Who doesn’t want to be the rock star? There aren’t many of us who dream of being the roadie, after all.
In the far-off land of Malaria, the reigning rock stars are mad scientists. With a climate disaster laying waste to their crops, the country has been forced into a new economic model; the world blackmail model. To that end, it helps if you have an evil genius designing a doomsday device that will bring the rest of the world to its knees, quaking in fear and eager to pull out the checkbook.
Of course, evil geniuses can’t be bothered to do their own grunt work. To that end, they have Igors – the physically deformed assistants who all share the same name so that the evil geniuses don’t have to waste a single brain cell thinking about what their names are. While Malaria hasn’t exactly set the world on fire yet (despite repeated attempts to), the Evil Science Fair still is a highly contested affair that can mean the difference between fame and nobodysville.
Dr. Schadenfreude (Izzard) has won the coveted fair for years and is the fair-haired boy of King Malbert (Leno). Dr. Glickenstein (Cleese) is determined to win the prize for himself, but despite the warnings of his Igor gets sent a one-way ticket to the Pearly Gates (or the flames of Hell – take your pick) in a gruesome industrial accident leaving his Igor (Cusack) in charge.
It turns out Igor has skills and he and his buddies Brain the disembodied brain (Hayes) and Scamper (Buscemi) the suicidal but sadly immortal rabbit do the impossible. They put together a body out of spare parts and give…it…LIFE…!!!!!
Cue the lightning and thunder. Yes, Igor has created a monster: Eva (Shannon) who is quite inexplicably not evil; why she literally wouldn’t hurt a fly. Igor determines to hypnotize her into being the evil monster that would be sure to make him the top mad scientist in all of Malaria, but accidentally puts in a tape of “Inside the Actors Studio” into the hypnosis session instead, so Eva comes out of the room wanting to fill out her journal of sense memories and demanding a bigger trailer.
Still, life is life and it’s a pretty big deal even if Eva is more of a diva than a devourer. Dr. Schadenfreude gets wind of Igor’s breakthrough and determines to steal the secret for himself. To top it all off, Igor has fallen in love with Eva. It’s enough to give you a humpache.
This is one of those movies that tries really hard to be hip; it’s heavily influenced by the Universal horror movies of the 30s and 40s (which, considering it was made by MGM is a bit ironic) and by Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride. The summary above sounds a lot more appealing than the execution.
The animation was done by the French studio that also gave us “Rolie Polie Olie.” The look of the movie is a bit dark, with industrial landscapes and lots of ochre. It doesn’t stand up to the fare of Pixar, Blue Sky and Sony but it’s still better than some of the cheap animation out there from lesser studios.
This is a pretty impressive voice cast. Think about it; would you see a live action movie with John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Molly Shannon, Arsenio Hall, Sean Hayes, Jennifer Coolidge and Eddie Izzard? In a heartbeat, says I.
The problem here is that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. The bits with Scamper and Brain are hysterical, but Igor himself is kind of bland. It’s not the fault of Cusack; it’s just that he doesn’t seem to be much more than a typical plucky animated feature hero. The movie needed a lot more than that.
Honestly I can’t tell you who this movie was supposed to appeal to. It’s a bit too offbeat for the average kid audience, but far too simple for the hipper viewer. It has at least the courage of its convictions and it makes a really noble effort to be different. The problem is that it doesn’t quite get there. It’s a near miss, but an interesting one; it certainly wouldn’t hurt to check it out.
WHY RENT THIS: Some nice vocal work and some really funny concepts.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Straddles the line between being too offbeat for kids and too childish for adults.
FAMILY VALUES: Although this is far from scary, there are some elements which play on classic horror film imagery and might frighten the very small ones in your household.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The part of Igor was originally supposed to be voiced by Christian Slater, but he was unable to do it due to his television commitments. Instead, he makes a cameo as one of the other Igors.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.
FINAL RATING: 6/10
TOMORROW: The Last Airbender
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