Decently Animated Film ‘Igor' Needs a Little Work
In the land of Malaria, every lad can dream of opening his own lab, having his own comely milk-maid girlfriend or diabolical mad scientist moll. Unless he has a hunch on his back and is named 'Igor.' Then, he's got a one-way ticket to 'All right, Igor, THROW THE SWITCH!'
That's the clever set-up of 'Igor,' a decently animated misfire from MGM and the French Sparx animation studio. Visually, it's a knock-off of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas,' and a credible one at that. But the joke-and-heart-starved script lets down a solid voice cast headed by John Cusack, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi, Jay Leno and Molly Shannon.
Cusack plays an Igor with a dream, to be his own evil genius someday. But that 'Yes, Master' degree ties him to the clumsy Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese, terrific). Igor's ideas are dismissed, even after the good doctor blows himself to smithereens. Still, if Igor can get his pet project into the annual Evil Science Fair and win, it'll be a blow for Igors everywhere.
Of course, Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard, perfect), who always wins by stealing others' inventions, won't hear of that. He tries to wrest control of Igor's creation, a living, breathing stitched-together monster woman (Molly Shannon).
Call 'Igor' a nice try by another animation interloper, more on the order of 'Space Chimps' than 'Fly Me to the Moon.'
But 'Igor' is chatty and dull, a bit too reliant on innuendo for a kids' film. Were this a DreamWorks or Pixar production, the computers wouldn't have rolled until the Igor at the keyboard had thrown the switch on a sharper, tighter, sillier script.
Animated family film, 80 min. RATING: PG (for some thematic elements, scary images, action and mild language). STARS the voices of: John Cleese, Eddie Izzard, John Cusack, Steve Buscemi. PLOT: Igor is sick of being a lowly lab assistant, so when his boss kicks the bucket a week before the big science fair, he finds his chance to shine. KIDS: Oh yeah! DIRECTOR: Tony Leondis. ON THE WEB: igor-movie.com