Two garden gnomes, Gnomeo and Juliet, try to avoid tragedy and find a happy ending to their star-crossed love affair when they are caught up in a feud between neighbors.
Genres: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Musical/Performing Arts and Animation Running Time: 1 hr. 24 min. Release Date: February 11th, 2011 (limited) MPAA Rating: G Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
Cast And Credits
Starring:
James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine, Jason Statham
Directed by:
Kelly Asbury
Produced by:
David Furnish, Steve Hamilton-Shaw, Baker Bloodworth
Instead of toys, lawn ornaments: ceramic garden gnomes, to be precise. In the 3-D animated “Gnomeo and Juliet,†as in the “Toy Story†movies, these kitschy items twitch to life only when the humans aren’t looking, which seems to be most of the time.
Those humans â€" Miss Montague (Julie Walters), and Mr. Capulet (Richard Wilson) â€" live in attached houses at 2B and Not 2B Verona Drive, Stratford-Upon-Avon. Unbeknownst to these rival gardeners, their hideous lawn decorations perpetuate their feud in fierce lawn-mower derbies and midnight guerrilla operations. Although the Montague side wears blue and the Capulet side red, the color coding only goes so far in helping identify characters, many of whom are not properly introduced in a movie that is seriously overpopulated. The 3-D is barely noticeable.
Still there is some fun to be found in this goofy riff on Shakespeare, released by the Touchstone unit of Disney, directed by Kelly Asbury (“Shrek 2â€) and overseen by Elton John, the executive producer, whose musical catalog was raided to underscore the film’s cheery-silly quasi-1950s ambiance. “Crocodile Rock,†“Your Song,†“Bennie and the Jets†and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart†are among the hits shoehorned into this semi-musical, along with two new Elton John-Bernie Taupin collaborations. One new song, “Hello Hello,†sounds almost exactly like the Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye.†If the songs are extraneous to the story, concocted by nine writers, they define the movie’s cheeky-campy tone. Late in the movie an animated Elton John caricature appears.
True to their pudgy porcelain identities, the lovers, who first meet by accident while in disguise are not typically sleek Disney sweethearts. Gnomeo (voiced by James McAvoy) is a portly young bloke with a thin white beard, and Juliet (Emily Blunt), who lives atop a fountain pedestal (to keep her from being “chippedâ€) is wholesomely pretty but unglamorous by Disney standards.
The funniest character is Juliet’s best friend, Nanette (Ashley Jensen), a long-lashed frog-shaped fountain ornament and hopeless romantic with a lascivious ear-to-ear smile, who goes all mushy at the notion of doomed romance. The most poignant character, Featherstone (Jim Cummings), is a pink plastic flamingo with a Cuban accent who the lovers liberate from a shed in an overgrown garden.
Maggie Smith voices Gnomeo’s snobbish mother, Lady Bluebury, and Michael Caine, Juliet’s overprotective father, Lord Redbrick. Juliet’s cousin Tybalt (Jason Statham) is a hot-tempered bully with a gangster attitude.
“Gnomeo and Juliet†is not without laughs. Some of the funniest bits involve an online expedition to purchase a monstrous lawn mower, the Terrafirminator (Hulk Hogan), whose arrival in the red side’s garden leads to a climactic battle in which the lovers are buried in a pile of rubble.
If the movie, which starts out shakily, improves in the second half, it is a discombobulated grab bag of jokes peopled with characters who have little emotional resonance. The source material, after all, is a romantic tragedy. Fiddling with the ending to make it a brighter family-friendly lark has its cost. Even Shakespeare is not pleased at the prospect of changing the ending. Although a statue of him (voiced by Patrick Stewart) warns against it, “Gnomeo and Juliet,†turns tragedy into whimsy.
Instead of toys, lawn ornaments: ceramic garden gnomes, to be precise. In the 3-D animated “Gnomeo and Juliet,†as in the “Toy Story†movies, these kitschy items twitch to life only when the humans aren’t looking, which seems to be most of the time.
Still there is some fun to be found in this goofy riff on Shakespeare, released by the Touchstone unit of Disney, directed by Kelly Asbury (“Shrek 2â€) and overseen by Elton John, the executive producer, whose musical catalog was raided to underscore the film’s cheery-silly quasi-1950s ambiance. “Crocodile Rock,†“Your Song,†“Bennie and the Jets†and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart†are among the hits shoehorned into this semi-musical, along with two new Elton John-Bernie Taupin collaborations. One new song, “Hello Hello,†sounds almost exactly like the Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye.†If the songs are extraneous to the story, concocted by nine writers, they define the movie’s cheeky-campy tone. Late in the movie an animated Elton John caricature appears. 
Maggie Smith voices Gnomeo’s snobbish mother, Lady Bluebury, and Michael Caine, Juliet’s overprotective father, Lord Redbrick. Juliet’s cousin Tybalt (Jason Statham) is a hot-tempered bully with a gangster attitude. 
If the movie, which starts out shakily, improves in the second half, it is a discombobulated grab bag of jokes peopled with characters who have little emotional resonance. The source material, after all, is a romantic tragedy. Fiddling with the ending to make it a brighter family-friendly lark has its cost. Even Shakespeare is not pleased at the prospect of changing the ending. Although a statue of him (voiced by Patrick Stewart) warns against it, “Gnomeo and Juliet,†turns tragedy into whimsy.
