IGOR's failed experiment
In order to avoid a snagging feeling of déjà vu during screenings of new animated flick IGOR keep repeating its only a kids movie, its only a kids movie, its only a kids movie! Otherwise it would be wise to completely avoid this cliché ridden childrens tale that unimaginatively re-works the plot motivation of both FRANKENSTEIN and its sequel BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN to nauseating effect, whilst finding time to lift a story arc and a dance number from ANNIE and lace the entire piece with sub CORPSE BRIDE horror aesthetics that dont go anywhere close to capturing the same bleakly comic charm that Tim Burton made his own. The setting is the thunderous Kingdom of Malaria (fancy that), a bleak and brooding netherworld which reinforces the bleak preoccupation that encourages misery and destruction through twisted mechanical inventions. In this world we learn there are two dominate strands of people that make up the population divide: severely twisted evil mad inventors (predominately voiced by John Cleese) and Igors, a servile class of gloomy, oafish, slurring hunchbacks who look forward to an aimless existence helping their masters to pull the switch in their sordid laboratories. A neat prologue quickly identifies this cruel class divide, setting the scene for what we think will be a heroic and imaginative story: tracing the paths of the underdog IGOR (voiced here by John Cusack) who may finally get a look in for his inventive skills; he has secretly built an indestructible giant female robot monster pegged Eva in an attempt to win the famed annual evil Science Fair and aspire to become greater than his incompetent master. But alas the whole show becomes horribly samey and stupid and we quickly become disinterested in the amoral plot details and more concerned with the dead silence that is becoming disturbingly apparent in the auditorium. You would think that the filmmakers would at least get the animation right, but instead we are presented with big blurry action sequences which more often than not highlight flaws in the limited, but occasionally nicely rendered design, rather than entice and keep quiet the restless noise from those frequently fidgeting kiddies. Flaws can also be traced through the romantic diversion of the plot - where Igors nicer than nice creation Eva gets a crush on her lonesome inventor - which feels forced and obvious, while Steve Buscemi (as suicidal but immortal rabbit faced sidekick Scamper) and Sean Hayes (playing a dim-witted talking brain in a glass named er Brain) do their best to distract the tired rudimentaries of the story with good comical banter. Then theres Eddie Izzard as the flamboyant, pointy chinned boo hiss foreign baddie of the piece Dr Schadenfreude and his interchangeable assistant Jaclyn/Heidi (Stiflers Mom Jennifer Coolidge). Theres something tasteless and nasty about a film that (in a scene lifted straight out of Kubricks controversial classic A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) subjects the innocent character of Eva to evil inducing treatment by forcing her to watch old black and white horror films in a strait-jacket brainwashing device. The scene was later made briefly humorous by the sudden accidental intervention of doses of clips from James Liptons INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO which paths the way for Evas eventual actress antics, which become gratuitously repetitive as the film progresses. Essentially theres little left to recommend a film that fails to explore the implications of its moral message that 'nice guys finish last and you have to be evil to survive in this world'until everything is turned on its head and the expected climatic message that 'good will always triumph over evil' rings blatantly true. As a result IGOR is a film that is easy on the eye but which will fade quickly in the mind and end up a failed laboratory experiment all of its own making.