Why Do We Need a Grinch Movie? · 4:48am Nov 15th, 2018
Short answer: we don't. (Or alternately, because money.)
Long answer... hoo boy.
Look, typically, I try not to condemn a movie based on its trailer. Marketing can sometimes be misleading, and completely screw up the impression that a film may sent.
But, ever since I saw the trailer for Illumination Entertainment's take on the Grinch back in July - before I saw Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom no less (yes, that's right, they aired a trailer for a Dr. Seuss movie right before a dinosaur movie) - my response to it was, "really?"
Because the movie promised in this here trailer:
I can only ask, "Why?"
I didn't laugh once when I saw it.
It didn't feel like The Grinch.
It barely looked like The Grinch to me...
Hell, if they didn't have Benedict Cumberbatch's name there, I wouldn't have even been able to GUESS that he was voicing the Grinch.
This movie doesn't feel like a Dr. Seuss story to me... it feels so much more like Illumination is just making another Despicable Me, than adapting Dr. Seuss' iconic Christmas story. I can see Gru doing that bit with the pickle and everything!
One big problem I have with this new movie?
The Grinch here looks far too soft.
He's grumpy, but not nasty. And that, my friends, is very VERY important.
Because the Grinch, in the original story, and especially in the iconic holiday special, voiced by Boris Karloff?
That's a mean-looking son of a bitch. He's not just grumpy, he is spiteful.
He's not playing petty jokes on the citizens of Whoville, he's ruining their entire holiday and loving every second of it. The Grinch is a guy who does not understand Christmas until the true meaning of it is literally shining right in his face.
The Grinch is an antisocial character. He's mean, he's cruel, and wicked.
Even the Jim Carrey movie got that.
As unfunny, mean-spirited, gross and asinine as that travesty of a movie was, they understood that the Grinch starts off the story mean and proud of it. Even if the movie completely missed the damn point of Seuss' message (I absolutely hate that they make the Whoville citizens a bunch of materialistic jackasses, because literally the whole point of their role in the original book was that they KNEW what Christmas REALLY meant and didn't need a wakeup call 
) and had stupid, cringeworthy "humor" like Jim Carrey shaking his green ass or...
Or that fucking "kiss the dog's ass" scene... 
As horrible as that movie was, they at least GOT the point that the Grinch (even with an unnecessary tragic excuse for his hating Christmas) was a pretty assholish character. And quite proud of it, too.
Remember the song?
Those lyrics could practically be the Grinch praising himself for what a total bastard he is. (Little-known fact: in the original special, the plan was for Boris Karloff to sing the song in addition to narrate the story, but Karloff - whose health was in pretty serious shape - informed the director that he couldn't actually sing, so they got Thurl Ravenscroft to do the singing instead.)
I just can't see the Grinch in this new movie ever being mean enough to actually really delight in stealing Christmas. He'd sulk and pout about Christmas, and maybe threaten to steal it or something, but instead slink back to his cave and think up some other pranks to pull on Whoville.
This new Grinch - you already know from looking at him that he's a softie at heart, and that just ruins the impact of the ending... the magic of the Grinch's reformation...
The Grinch is like Ebenezer Scrooge in a lot of ways. They're both wicked old bastards who get redeemed through the realization that there IS something more to Christmas. That there is love and beauty and more to the holiday than just people making merry or partying. That moment in the book, and the special, where the Grinch realizes that Christmas doesn't just come from a store, is beautiful and profound, because it's the first time that the mean old bastard really truly GETS the wonder and love at the heart of Christmas.
It's what makes the end of the story, where the Grinch carves the roast beast, so touching. It's the sight of someone who was once hateful and bitter, now at peace and doing good for others, and not just himself.
Now, maybe this new movie will be good. But honestly, I'm not optimistic about it. (Honestly, I find the mere idea of making one of Seuss' books into a full-length movie to be a pretty bad idea... if you absolutely have to make a Dr. Seuss movie, they really should make it a compilation feature; a collection of his stories animated and told with various actors and such. That would be far better than most anything we've gotten from big studio efforts to make one of the good doctor's stories into a movie...)
Me, this Christmas, I'll be content to watch the old special again, and maybe read the book if I'm feeling really nostalgic. Because those two, they tell a Christmas story, and they get it right.
Yeah, I got that feeling too. This just seems like they are just taking the original story, watering it down and then padding the run time with comedy. It just seems like they are going to miss the whole point of what Seuss was trying to teach.
Yep, I've got misgivings about it too.
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Glad to know I'm not alone in that regard.
It's a shame, because I love the works of Dr. Seuss and yet I feel like there's barely been any good adaptations of his work. For me, it peaked with the two TV specials made by Chuck Jones of the Grinch and Horton Hears a Who.
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Indeed. Couldn't agree more.
This film may not be as obnoxious and offensive as the Jim Carrey movie was, but still, they're playing it way too safe and stripping down the things that made the classic story work.