Igor: A Monstrous Creation

Mary Shelley just spun in her grave, for Igor monstrously rips her masterpiece. An imaginative enough premise, the animated flick about a good-hearted Igor, in a bad-hearted world, that creates his own monster Frankenstein-style, loses its way by being as patched and badly-stitched together as the monster itself.

The well-meaning, but poorly executed, piece of drivel steals its look exactly from the pages of Tim Burton. In fact, I’m pretty sure Igor’s king of dark, clouded Malaria is the same exact character as Halloweentown’s mayor. But besides stealing characters – and the overall theme and message of the film – straight out of The Nightmare Before Christmas, the true crime of Igor is just how un-funny it is.

The loveable John Cusack, the riotous Eddie Izzard, and one of my personal under appreciated faves, Sean Hayes, all lent their voices to Igor and oh what a waste! John Cusack’s Igor was sweet, but muddled. The inventive hunchback who dreams of being an evil scientist proved too hard a concept to get behind. His initial allegiance to evil and sarcastic commentary mixes oddly with the tenderness he later shows to his creation, and it’s never quite clear that he ever really chooses a side at all. It seems he was good all along and just thought he liked evil – I guess?

If that was bad, Igor’s sidekicks were even more befuddling. First, there was Brain (sadly voiced by Sean Hayes), who was literally a brain in a jar and a startlingly dumb one at that. Now don’t get me wrong, dumb can be funny. Jim Carrey and Will Farrell have made entire careers for themselves based on that idea. But Brain (whose name was spelled wrong on his jar), was so dumb that not one kid in the audience was giggling. Not one. Sidekick number two was Scamper, a weasel-like animal voiced appropriately by Steve Buscemi, with the Igor-endowed gift of immortality. However, immortal Scamper has a death wish, which he frequently spouts off about, and last I checked, suicidal sidekicks aren’t exactly kid-friendly. But worse than his suicide-related jokes, were his smartass, satirical jokes poking fun at modern culture. Were these meant for the adults in the audience? Because I didn’t laugh. Jokes relating to Igor’s creation and love interest, Eva (Molly Shannon) were also oddly adult-oriented. It was jarring enough that the character had the same name as the robot love interest from Wall-E – a far, far superior movie. But then the empty, sweet monster gets brain washed into an actress. Hollywood insider jibes and jabs at Angelina Jolie and other uber-celebrities follow. Why would kids get this? They wouldn’t. And the content is so unoriginal (you mean celebrities are adopting babies?!) the adults aren’t laughing either.

So if the good guys aren’t good, you can always depend on the bad guys, right? Wrong. I love Eddie Izzard. I love him on The Riches. I love him in his Oceans’ cameos. I love his stand-up. I ask people on the street if they want cake or death. But I did not love this. It was impossible to even find Eddie in Dr. Schadenfreude (a brilliantly clever name in gloomy, un-clever movie). If I hadn’t known Izzard was playing ze good doctor (and by good I mean bad) before, I would never have known it was him voicing the slimy, abusive character who spends most of his time being insulted by his inappropriately slutty gal pal, Jaclyn (Jennifer Coolidge).

The only good thing I can say about Igor is that it ended mercifully after 87 minutes, wrapping up with something sticky sweet, surely stolen out of yet another better movie (Monster’s Inc. perhaps?). Igor’s one monster that should never have been brought to life.