Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom

I have seen 8th graders perform Shakespeare with more talent than the actors in this movie. It is truly painful to watch The story is just mediocre, and it feels written in one evening by a hack who read a Lovecraft story two days ago and got an itch to write about it. The animation is about on the level of a cheap computer animated kids show,making shows like Shimmer and Shine look worthy of Academy Awards. This is a true waste of time. If you have any respect for Lovecraft, don't watch this. If you don't, still do not watch this. Anything that might encourage anoth3r one of these movies is an insult to movie creators and movie lovers everywhere.

As a 30 year old man I like to watch the movies my nephew is gonna watch later, so I know he's not watching some stuff that's not for kids. Then I saw "Lovecraft" in the title and I was like "wow... really? Gotta watch this, maybe it's not 100% for kids".

Sadly, I was wrong, it's a movie targeted 100% for kids. So:

1.- Yes, totally safe for kids, let them watch it and stuff. 2.- CHEAPEST animation I've seen in YEARS. As awful as the bad 3D models you've seen in DisneyXD on their pilot episodes. 3.- Keeping item 1 in mind, as it is for kids, it feels like an insult to the Lovecraft stories, which are definitely not for kids.

After visiting his father in Arkham Sanitarium, young Howard Lovecraft accidentally uses the legendary Necronomicon to open a portal to a strange frozen world filled with horrifying creatures and a great adventure.

When this film arrived for review from Shout! Factory, I have to say I was intrigued. Although I have not read the graphic novel, I do appreciate the work of H. P. Lovecraft and I generally like animation. But this ended up being rather disappointing. The Lovecraft elements are strong, but the animation aspects are terribly weak.

The animation itself is choppy and reminds me of the old computer game "Alone in the Dark". In some sense, this is oddly appropriate, because the game had some Lovecraft elements to it. But if you are going to animate with computers, it probably shouldn't look like you're using a 25-year old animation program.

The voices are also really strange. Some of the actors deliver the lines naturally, and really understand their roles (not surprisingly, these seem to be the bigger names). But others seem like they're reading off a page without context or inflection. Conversations start and stop in very awkward ways. It's pretty awful.

What may be the biggest stumbling block of all, however, is the complex plot. Those familiar with Lovecraft may find it perfectly natural, but most viewers (including the children this is presumably aimed at) might be confused. The Great Ones, Old Ones, Deep Ones are hard to keep straight, and most challenging (even for me) is why Cthulhu has another name. This never really clicked for me.

As much as I support getting more Lovecraft into the mainstream, and introducing him to children, this seems like a less than perfect way to do it. From the sound of it, there might be some sequels coming, and I don't hold out much hope for those either.

Someone with a massive amount of coke thought it was a wonderful idea to adapt elements of the stories created by H.P. Lovecraft into an animated children's movie.

WHY?

I might give this a pass if it was at least competently written. Alas, it is not. The works of HPL DO NOT lend themselves to lighthearted fare.

If you appreciate Lovecraft's work at all, pass this one by and by all means, do not insult the intelligence of your children with this.

Incredibly dumb and misguided.

First off, let me say that it was suggested this production company adds positive reviews for their work. Keep that in mind. Judge for yourself if this is the case by the dates the reviewers joined.

Now to the review: I did enjoy this film more than I should have. I really liked it. Why? This is probably one of the best (only) Lovecraft stories for children that I've seen. The other notable and best was "The Real Ghostbusters" Cthulhu episode. What works: The animation style is charming, relaxed and easy to see. Lots of contrasts enable you to follow the action without distraction. The talent: Fantastically voiced by the actors, notably young Howard. The themes: reasonably loyal to Lovecraft's characters - but obviously you can't do that and still have a children's' show. I liked the compromises made. The artistic designs - wonderfully modelled characters do a nice job of making you feel the 1920's feel.

What does not work: The actual animation - several times I saw trees floating in air, parts of the ground missing (though this could have been deliberate). The flow seems a bit jerky at times, but I don't imagine this picture had a massive hardware budget, so it's forgivable. This has the feel of being created around the same time as "Starship Troopers - Roughnecks". The voice of Spot: very, very badly voiced by a producer. No inflections, difficult if not impossible to understand for most of the show. You might as well remove all of Spot's dialog and just have him grunt. The pacing: This show could have used the experience of a professional director / editor and chopped about 30-45 minutes out of it. The action pauses so many times during the 'intense' scenes that it's like they tried to lengthen the film by adding 10 seconds every minute. Perhaps the distributes demanded it be a certain length and they simply didn't have the content. The price: This is a show I think you should buy - but only as a $5 digital download. Currently its price-point is excessive and preventing widespread sales. I hope the producers make this change before it is downloaded for free via torrents.

Overall this is something that should have been sold on STEAM, not destined for theatres. It does not have broad appeal and selling it as a $20 bluray is a pipe-dream.

That being said, I'd love to see this as a television series. I think it would be reasonably well received. Like I say, I really enjoyed it, but I'm starving for new HP Lovecraft content and this will have to do.