How The Grinch Stole Christmas (DVD 2001)

Not scary, not merry, and not even funny,
The hype around GRINCH is a synch to make money.
Jim Carrey's the star, Ron Howard directs
With producer Brian Grazer, they've hedged their bets.
"The Grinch Who Stole Christmas," a classic book
For kids and adults worth a second look
James Horner's score adds music with sass.
Sir Anthony Hopkins is bound to add class.
Yet it's somewhat sad and sorely true
That the quirky art and joyful voice
Of the one and only Dr. Seuss
Are nowhere to be found
In the Whoville of Hollywood Town.


Please forgive me. This flick is a must see, but it's no cause for whobilation. Kudos, however, for an impressive array of FX and art direction. Special effects makeup by five time Oscar winner Rick Baker, who also designed the Grinch's body suit, is audacious. Unfortunately, the spirit of Dr. Seuss' original illustration is barely visible beneath a heap of overzealous, high budget expertise.

This Grinch looks like a funky green Sasqwatch with bad teeth. (One more close-up, and I was going to lose my popcorn.) The residents of Whoville resemble large rodents. It's a grotesque interpretation of something many Boomers hold to be sacred. The creative signature of Pulitzer Prize winning author Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) was eccentric, multi-dimensional, and deceptively simple. Granted, it is a daunting task to translate a classic into another medium. Ron Howard's heart was probably in the right place, but the effort falls short.

The actors, particularly Jeffrey Tambor as the Mayor of Whoville, Bill Irwin as the Postman, Molly Shannon as his wife, and sexy Christine Baransky as Martha May Whovier, sparkle amidst a plot that is slow, bleak and heavy on backstory. Adorable, human-like Taylor Momsen plays Cindy Lou Who, the wise little girl who teaches the jaundiced mean one to follow his heart. (One wonders if she will grow up to look as weird as her parents.) The dog Max delivers a standup performance as straight man to Carrey's Grinch.




The gloomy, contrived psycho-babble scripted by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman of Who Framed Roger Rabbit fame, is mildly entertaining, but fails to capture the charm of Dr. Seuss' text. These fine screenwriters are not to blame, for every plot twist gets voted by commitee in big deal flicks such as this one. The baby Grinch gets dissed for being different, for being a What instead of a Who, and we can see from his tormented youth the Why of his bitterness. The gist is, being evil is okay, as long as we understand how you got that way. So he wallows in garbage and toxic waste, abuses his dog, sings like Rex Harrison, and eats glass. Is that really funny?

For the price of a movie ticket, plus tax, you can buy a nifty little book of witty lines from the script, with photos of the actors. All of this and more could fit on a carton of eggnog. Talk about Xmas cheer! A cooler alternative would be to purchase Dr. Seuss' version of the story and read it out loud to someone you love. (Your dog, perhaps.) See, the thing about Christmas is, what really counts is not the presents, or buying things, or getting stuff, or having the most lights on your roof, but having heart. Yeah, right. That's exactly what's missing from this crafty performance piece. Ironically, Dr. Seuss' message is buried in a blizzard of mass marketing that swirls around Carrey's abominable snowman.The packaging of Grinch is an homage to consumerism. Hey, did you hear they're building a Whovil