Harold and the Purple Crayon

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It's kinda crazy to think of myself as a guy who appreciates imagination after having grown up with a LOT of imaginative and creative material, yet never hearing of 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' until this movie came along. Not only is it a famous kids book, but it was also adapted into a series of shorts over the years, featured on 'Captain Kangaroo' (not that I really watched it), and even featured as a short-run animated series in 2001, narrated by Sharon Stone. You'd think just word of mouth would have gotten to me, eventually.

The story (which is also the opening to the movie) involves four-year-old Harold, who has the power to create his own world, simply by drawing it with his purple crayon. He creates, and creates, but eventually gets tired and wants to go home to bed, so has to search for his bedroom window. Soon enough, he remembers where his bedroom window is, and makes himself a bed to dose off in, "the end." But the opening of the film continues Harold's (Zachary Levi) adventures, as he grows up and creates his two best friends, Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds).

As the opening shows you all of this in animation, it's being narrated by Alfred Molina; someone Harold can actually communicate with as he tells Harold's stories. One day, Harold tries calling out to the narrator, and realizes he seems to have gone missing. Knowing that the narrator lives in the real world, however, Harold comes up with a simple solution by drawing a door to the "Real World" and opening it up, providing him a portal to Earth as we know it. You wanna roll your eyes at the simplicity of it, but at the same time, I admire that they just went with it, because if they didn't, we'd be asking "why doesn't he just?"

Harold enters the real world with Moose, who turns into a human, but Porcupine gets left behind. They immediately get into an accident with a lady named Terry (Zooey Deschanel) and her son, (*cringe*) Melvin (Benjamin Bottani), ultimately giving them a place to stay, once Harold uses his purple crayon to fix Terry's tire. By the way, Mel sees this, Terry doesn't, and that's something that gets repeated time and time again throughout the film to a fault. But anyway, Harold and Mel become friends, which may or may not be creepy depending on who you are, but it is at least addressed by Terry more than once.

Eventually, Mel offers to help Harold find his "Dad" (the narrator), and that's essentially what the movie is all about, while on the side, Zooey Deschanel is basically reprising her role from 'Elf' as a somewhat bitter lady who needs to cheer up through the help of a colourful main character. Meanwhile, Porcupine does end up entering the real world, but her story is a bit more fun, as she basically becomes a criminal through her actions, but really, she's just doing what porcupines do. It's a bit like watching 'Smurfs' where live-action Gargamel is the best part of an otherwise typical fish-out-of-water story.

A lot of logic really irked me with this one. So many moments involve Terry dismissing the purple crayon magic as nonsense, and somewhat shunning her own kid for his overactive imagination. But either Harold OR Mel (who gets his own piece of the crayon) could show her how it all works, and for some dumb reason don't, even when the climax his happening, involving our villain; a failed author named Gary (Jemaine Clement), whose motivation through the movie involves using the purple crayon to bring his imaginary world to life, and hopefully getting with Terry.

But I must say, for as stupid as things like that come across, there's a particular innocence about the movie that can't be overlooked. As far as truly family-friendly movies go, despite an irksome moment or two, it's fine. It's generally harmless, kinda fun in a kid's movie kind of way, and it's a solid reminder of how well our imaginations can serve us in a time of need. 'IF' was very similar in tone and morality; this too is very much a kid's movie, and needs to be seen as such. For as irksome as some of the more obvious things can be, I can say with all honesty that I'd have eaten this movie up when I was a kid.

3/5

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