After all this time, I was happy to see a new cartoon on the big screen that was based not on action and adventure but fun and a truly good feeling story. We asked our 6 year old to explain what curious meant and he said "getting into trouble". Our 11 year old explained the dictionary definition and our 4 year old was clueless...I personally went with no preconceived notion as to how Curious George would translate onto the big screen except for our family's love of the Curious George book series.

If you're looking for a review that details the bios of the music by Jack Johnson, the director Matthew O'Callaghan or the producer Ron Howard, visit www.curiousgeorgemovie.com. I'm not sure what the director has done before nor do I care about the composer's bio...should a parent spend money on this movie is my focus and in my opinion, waiting until it's available for Netflix is the best bet.

After reading in print what Marget and H.A. Rey created, Curious George the monkey did not translate well into the movie genre. As a non-speaking chimpanzee, his big eyes, adventurous spirit and playful attitude was overplayed on the big screen. For us, Curious George does not have human-like traits; in our books, he is purely monkey existing in the city. This movie tried to give George human traits and none in our family bought this adaptation.

Ted, voiced by Will Ferrell, was a weak, limp character with no spunk or true hero quality on the big screen. Our books featured the "Man in the Yellow Hat" as bigger than life, bold and adventurous; his book persona was a much stronger character than the movie portrayed him. A man who is able to wear yellow should be strong and Ted was a very weak individual who also was less than the capable African adventurer as he was portrayed in the books.

Enter Maggie, voiced by Drew Barrymore, a shy, yet buxomly drawn school teacher whose infatuation with Ted brought her to the museum where Ted worked weekly with her class. Although some movies need a female, I don't think those whose affection toward George and the man in the yellow hat truly need a girlfriend for our hero. Maggie was a detractor with her low cut tops and painted on clothing; her role to me was fluff...I guess they needed a big name to add to the credits in order to market this movie.

As owner of the Bloomsberry museum where Ted works as a tour guide, Mr. Bloomsberry ( voiced by Dick Van Dyke) is a cute but bumbling old fool whose wretched and snively son Junior (voiced by David Cross), decided to turn the entire museum into a parking garage because of the decline of its use. Mr. Bloomsberry had once had a wild youthful dream of pursing the Lost Shrine of Zagawa and Ted, in his moment of weakness, offered to save the museum by traveling to Africa to retrieve the shrine and save the museum.

With his nutty professor inventor friend, Clovis (voiced by Eugene Levy), Ted is on his way to saving the museum after he returns from Africa with the massively small Zagawa. Curious George helps Ted get tossed from his no-pets apartment with the soup-nazi stylized doorman, Ivan (Ed O'Ross). George also manages to help decorate Ted's upstairs eccentric opera-loving neighbor, Miss Plushbottom (Joan Plowright).


I was a bit non-plussed by the entire movie. I was disgusted by the coloring and the old-feelings in this movie. The movie had too many cheesy product promotions that really turned our 11 year old off; he found several product placements by McDonald's and even the H.A. Rey boat to Africa seemed tacky. Our 6 year old still had no grasp of the true meaning of curious because George seemed to get more into mischief than actually be curious...the film played up the entire mischievious and trouble-making aspects of curiousity rather than the gentle, information seeking aspects.

What also annoyed me was the short film length, only 77 minutes long, and the annoying 2D effects...you see, I wear glasses and if the reflections off the big screen aren't bad enough, I wasn't able to truly focus into the movie. I think some of the scenes were actually supposed to have special effects but as a glasses-wearer, I was not able to capture any of those effects...I did manage to get a headache, though.


Our 4 year old noticed that Ted and Curious George stole balloons, stole bananas and broke into a neighbor's apartment plus lied about everything including George's place in the apartment to the law enforcing doorman.

These are not the traits of the H.A. and Marget Rey monkey we love and know. Assigning human characteristics such as snuggling to a monkey really gave us the shivers since the monkey will only be little for so long...also, as our insightful 11 year old pointed out, The Man in the Yellow Hat had no name.

Now, he not only has a name, but a girlfriend, a museum owner. Our 6 year old was quick to note that Ted had no car of his own in this movie but in the book he did have his own yellow convertible...the movie had him borrowing Clovis' VW pick-up truck and crashing it off a dock onto a yacht.

My husband wanted me to add that the music truly was horrible. I'm sorry, but it was a cross between Air Supply, Neil Diamond and John Denver...annoying, overdone and very instrusive. Overall, the music was too loud in certain introspective parts which intruded on your ability to focus on the movie itself.

Overall, I feel the heart and soul of the books written some 60 years ago were lost in the translation. Curious George is not human nor do we need to have numerous product endorsements and placements throughout a child's movie. The adult humor was horrible and simply non-existant and the children's humor less than amusing to ours. Our 11, 6 and 4 year olds may have cracked a smile but never had a belly laugh nor were any of the visual effects entertaining to them as well. We all left feeling as if we missed something and yet I wonder if it were the producers who missed it and not us...



Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4