A Remake of a Holiday Classic

An indepth look and review of the new movie "The Grinch"

“How The Grinch Stole Christmas” is a classic animated Christmas special that many families watch every year. Attempting to remake such a beloved classic is tough. A remake must combine both what made the classic great and new ideas to create something that is at least as good or better than the original source material. “The Grinch,” released on November 9th, 2018, is a 3D animated remake of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” a 1957 Christmas children's book created by Dr. Seuss and the 1966 animated adaptation. The film is directed and produced by Yarrow Cheney, Scott Mosier, Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy. “The Grinch” is made by Illumination studios, known for their previous Dr. Seuss adaptation, The Lorax. The story in “The Grinch” centers around the Grinch, an angry hermit who lives on a mountain, spending his time despising the people in the nearby town of Whoville. The film focuses on the Grinch trying to steal the entire holiday of Christmas away from the people of Whoville, in order to take away their happiness. The movie focuses on his attempt to steal Christmas, which leads the Grinch to learn the true meaning of Christmas. While the plot of “The Grinch” remains largely the same from the book and animated special it is based off of, there are a few plot points, characters and an entirely new plot lines added. This is expected when adapting a half hour animated special in to a feature length theatrical movie. Of course, the basic premise stays the same with the Grinch despising Christmas and attempting to steal it from Whoville. Then after stealing all of Whoville’s decorations and presents, the Grinch’s feelings change at the last second, and he decides to spend Christmas in Whoville and become a nicer person. This movie retains this basic plot premise, but an additional plot line was added, involving Cindy Lou Who, who is no longer just two years old. Cindy Lou is now a young elementary school age girl whose entire plot thread involves capturing Santa Claus in order ask him in person for her Christmas wish. Rather than wishing for toys, Cindy wishes that her mother could be happy and not have to work so hard. Donna Lou Who, Cindy’s hard working single mother, is a new character added in the film. Donna is shown to work very hard -- working the night shift at her job and taking care of Cindy and her two younger twin brothers. In the movie, Donna is depicted as being stressed out, falling asleep on a bus and being very spacey when making breakfast for her children. Cindy seems to notice this and wants Santa to do something to allow her mother to be stress free. After a run in with the Grinch in the beginning of the movie, Cindy decides sending a letter to Santa is not enough, and she needs to talk with him face to face. The main plot involving the Grinch stays relatively the same, adding in a few scenes to help develop the Grinch’s character more thoroughly. One of the biggest changes in the movie is the personality and motivation of the Grinch. In the source material the movie is based off of, the Grinch is extremely cold towards everyone, and is portrayed as selfish and harsh. In the 2018 film, while the Grinch is still rude and selfish, it is to a much lesser extent. “The Grinch” has more comedy, with many scenes attempting to make relatable jokes. The Grinch is now portrayed as more relatable and sympathetic, giving a new dimension to the Grinch's character. One excellent new scene involve the Grinch falling into Whoville during the lighting of the town’s Christmas tree. In this scene, the Grinch is shown to be having a panic attack being surrounded by all the festive decorations and Whos. This scene shows that the Grinch hating Christmas is more than a one note character trait, and offers some reasoning behind the hatred. During the film, it is conveyed that the reason for the Grinch hating Christmas comes from his childhood. In a flashback, it is shown that the Grinch was an orphan who was never able to celebrate Christmas. He always felt lonely and jealous of other people during Christmas, causing his hatred for the holiday to build. Near the end of the movie, the Grinch realizes that the reason he hates Christmas is not because of Christmas itself, but because he is lonely. This new side of the Grinch adds an emotional core to the Grinch’s character. This gives actual motivation to the Grinch, leading to a more fleshed out character. The rest of the Christmas plot remains intact, adding more scenes showing the Grinch’s everyday life and the Grinch's preparation to steal Christmas. Of course, alongside the Grinch appears his loyal dog, Max. Max’s relationship with the Grinch is more developed, seeming more like friends, and less like Max was the Grinch's servant like in the source material. Max seems to serve as the Grinch’s reality check, often being concerned with the Grinch’s extravagant plans. While these are the main two characters of the Grinch’s plot line, there is a new character added as well. While searching for reindeers to pull their sled, the Grinch and Max meet a large reindeer called Fred. Fred appears for only a third of the movie and appears mostly for comic relief. Fred only becomes relevant near the end of the movie, helping the Grinch save the sled full of stolen Christmas items from falling. Fred, although good for a few jokes, did not seem to add much to the film. The over abundance of pointless character is the worst part of “The Grinch.” It felt as though certain characters were added, but they were not given the proper development or plot relevancy to create a well rounded character. While the main characters, the Grinch, Cindy Lou Who, Donna Lou Who and Max all feel like good characters with arcs in their respective plotlines, there are quite a few new characters that just felt pointless and like they cluttered up the film. Fred, while appearing for a few jokes, did nothing until the end when he and his family appeared to help save the Grinch’s sleigh. Fred was not the only character to have this problem. This happens again throughout the movie, with characters such as Cindy Lou’s friends--four kids, that appear only to allow Cindy Lou to give out exposition. These characters do nothing and do not impact the output of the film. These characters took up space in the movie and felt as if they were included to fill time. Being an animated film, the appearance and animation play a major role in the quality of the overall movie. While “The Grinch” is definitely not the most stunning or technically impressive looking animated films of recent years, but it is not terrible. The animation is good, opting for more cartoony and exaggerated movements over more realistic movements. The character designs retain that Dr. Seuss style, while giving them more of a modern flare. None of the character come looking out of place, and all the character designs feel like they belong. The texture of the fur on all the characters faces, including the Whos of Whoville, Max and the Grinch all looked especially detailed, with all the fur textures looking very soft. The scenery and settings were very fitting, with Whoville retaining its oddly shaped houses and weird designs. The landscape surrounding the town is mountainy and snowy, the mountains are extremely sharp and angular, giving the scenery a more storybook esque appearance, which is appropriate, considering the source material. The piece of animation that stood out the most was the snow and how it looked and moved. The snow looked gorgeous, with its texture and how it sparkles in lighting. The best part was that it was not extremely realistic. It felt more powdery and light, almost like the fake snow one would see in a model Christmas village. This helped give the movie’s scenery a unique feeling that helped add the children's story book style. Overall the animation was decent, nothing too spectacular, but nothing terrible either. Another important component of a movie is the sound, such as the soundtrack and voice actors. Once again, similar to the animation, “The Grinch” is done well, but is nothing special. All the voice actors portray their characters well, almost none of the characters voices felt monotone or unbefitting of the character, except one. Cindy Lou Who is voiced by Cameron Seely, who does a good job portraying the character, but sometimes the voice felt forced. At some moments of the movie, her voice seemed flat, like it did not change to fit the emotion of the character, but this was not very noticable. In the movie, there were two voices that stood out -- the Grinch, who is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and Donna Lou, played by Rashida Jones. Both of these voices were excellent were excellent for the characters. Cumberbatch and Jones both played their characters wonderfully. They were definitely the stand out voice actors of the film. Also included in the sound of the film is the music. With Danny Elfman composing the music, the film sounds fantastic. The music is lively and emphasizes the feeling that each scene desires to create. There are plenty of tracks that completely envelop the spirit of Christmas. Some classic Christmas songs appear in the film as well, helping to build the feeling of the holiday. Some tracks that appear throughout the film are remade tracks or remixes of music from the original 1966 animated special. When these tracks appear, it helps give references and nostalgia to the classic animated special that many people grew up watching. The biggest track in the soundtrack is the newly revamped version of “You’re A Mean One Mr.Grinch,” which Elfman and popular music creator, Tyler the Creator, collaborated on. This remix is a fun reimagining of the classic song. It was used in a lot of the movie’s marketing and appears in the movie as well. Overall, the movie’s soundtrack is good and helps develop the mood of the film. Overall, “The Grinch” does a good job at modernizing and adapting the film to suit modern audiences. “The Grinch” is no replacement for the classic animated christmas special, rather it feels like an addition that would be watched along side the classic. The film takes time to flesh out the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who more and add wonderful characters like Donna Lou Who, but suffers due to adding extra characters with no substance. The movie looks good, with great scenery and beautiful snow. The voice actors and soundtrack do a good job at conveying the mood of the film. The movie is definitely aimed more towards a younger audience but is still suitable and enjoyable enough to watch together as a family. “The Grinch” is an okay movie, it is not the best, it definitely is not for everyone, but does a good job retelling the classic Dr. Seuss story.