‘Gnomeo & Juliet’ makes a tragedy of adapting Shakespeare

Not so punny: Gnomeo & Juliet

By Josh Bell

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011 | noon

The Details

Gnomeo & Juliet

Voices of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Jason Statham

Directed by Kelly Asbury

Rated G

Beyond the Weekly

Official Movie Site

IMDb: Gnomeo & Juliet

Rotten Tomatoes: Gnomeo & Juliet

The cleverness and humor in the animated movie Gnomeo & Juliet pretty much stops at the title, a pun on Romeo & Juliet via garden gnomes, the movie’s main characters. Director Kelly Asbury and the nine (!) credited screenwriters appropriate the most basic elements of William Shakespeare’s classic tale of star-crossed lovers while jettisoning anything remotely tragic or complex (Gnomeo himself even jokes that the original’s ending is far too downbeat). Two tribes of garden gnomes and other outdoor knick-knacks live in adjoining yards and hate each other for reasons no one can remember. When the blue-hatted Gnomeo (voiced by James McAvoy) meets the red-hatted Juliet (Emily Blunt), it’s love at first sight, but their respective families will have nothing of it.

The conflict in Gnomeo is entirely inconsequential, and the characters are at best mildly amusing. The soundtrack is full of ill-fitting Elton John songs (including some classics awkwardly rewritten to include references to garden gnomes), and the plot is full of recycled elements not only from Shakespeare but also from other animated movies (especially the Toy Story series’ concept of inanimate playthings coming to life when humans aren’t around). The cutesy Shakespeare references quickly get old, and the pop-culture pastiches feel nearly as dated. With its colorful look and cast full of recognizable voices, Gnomeo is harmless enough—which is pretty much a crime when adapting one of the greatest literary works of all time.