Well, this movie is just… bizarre. Oh, cute certainly, and it definitely has its moments of utter adorability, but one simply has to wonder how such an idea ever came about. It’s easy to suspect that Travelocity, whose mascot Roaming Gnome is making all kinds of synergistic publicity hay out of this film, sent out a call for scripts to bring gnomes forcibly into the zeitgeist, and the project landed on the desk of an English major smoking a little too much weed and staring vacantly out of his bedroom window at his mother’s prized collection of little concrete men. (He still lives at home with his parents). “Gnomes, eh?” he ponders, as he blows a perfect smoke ring, to his own tremendous satisfaction. The song “Love Me” by The Cardigans comes up on his iTunes shuffle. “Oh, this song is from the Romeo and Juliet movie” he says knowledgably to the empty room. A pause. “Wait… Romeo and Juliet… how about Gnomeo and Juliet?”

And thus, an animated movie was born.

It is in fair Verona Drive where we lay our scene, in which two households, alike in tackiness, have a vast array of garden gnomes cluttering up their yards. In the one, the gnomes are blue-hatted. In the other, they are red-hatted. The heirs to each are the fiercely loyal Gnomeo (James MacAvoy) and the independent-minded Juliet (Emily Blunt). When the two meet -- after some pretty spectacular ninja moves from Juliet, who is, you must remember, made of plaster -- it is love at first sight, and even when they discover that their families are mortal enemies, they cannot contain their feelings for one another.

Aw.

I bet when James MacAvoy was studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and he envisioned playing Romeo, it probably wasn’t as a gnome. Odds are also good that Emily Blunt’s early fevered daydreams of portraying star-crossed Juliet, she didn’t think: “Hey, maybe I’ll get to play her voice while she is in the guise of a lawn ornament.” Indeed, the entire cast is a veritable roll call of British acting legend: aside from Blunt and McAvoy, we also have Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham and Ozzy Fricken Osbourne. Also, Stephen Merchant as a particularly nerdy version of Father-approved Juliet-suitor Paris, and his Extras co-star, Ashley Jennings, as a wonderfully amusing frog sprinkler attachment-cum-nursemaid. They are joined by US animation voice legend Jim Cummings (aside from anything else, he was the voice of Shredder in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon) as Featherstone, an enthusiastic Latino flamingo; Dolly Parton, in a peculiar and needless cameo; and Patrick Stewart, a distinguished Shakespearean actor whom one can’t help but feel is slumming here as he plays a statue of the Bard -- well, at least Stewart’s signing on meant they didn’t end up getting Joseph Fiennes.

One thing I did not anticipate at all was the soundtrack comprised entirely of Elton John songs. (“Your Song” is given a garden theme! So wrong that it’s just a little bit right.) Other pop culture references include Brokeback Mountain, Forrest Gump, Lassie, and assorted others; there is also an internet ad for the Terrafirminator, a lawnmower that is a “ruthless grass-dominating piece of hardware” and “unnecessarily powerful” (and is advertised by Hulk Hogan) that made me laugh out loud harder than anything else in the film.

Not that this movie isn’t quite amusing, but it’s mostly a subtle kind of funny. The fact that this is Romeo and Juliet as portrayed by sentient and animated gnomes cannot be stressed enough. There is also a scene that sees Gnomeo “hanging a lantern” on a plot development when consulting with Shakespeare’s statue on the similarities between his romance and a certain famous tragedy. “What did you say? They both die?” Gnomeo protests. “What kind of an ending is that?” Well, clearly not one we’ll be seeing in a kids’ movie, I would hazard a guess.

True, the spirit of the play is honored in some respects. Tybalt (Statham) is here, and he is mean, mean, mean. There’s a mute but clever mushroom who is Gnomeo’s sidekick and may well be intended to be Mercutio; Benvolio is represented by simpleton Benny; and the names of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are emblazoned on a moving truck that forms part of Featherstone’s tragic back story. But as for an authentic ending to the tale… no, of course not. Hell, even Tybalt ends up put back together at the end of this thing. Which means more than one of today’s tykes is going to get themselves a shock when forced to study this tale in school.

And after all of that, you know what? I’m sticking with “bizarre.” It’s not the worst interpretation of its source material I’ve ever seen, and not even the oddest animated version I have yet encountered (that honor going to The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride), but neither is anything all that wonderful. It’s basically a one-joke premise that, true, continues to be funny -- it’s Romeo and Juliet with gnomes, y’all! -- and yet, in the final analysis, it is just so far off the wall as to basically be insane.

Maybe I should have watched this movie while high? Perhaps then I’d have a better appreciation of its merits. After all, I’m pretty sure it was conceived that way.


   -- Rachel Hyland