require to divert the kiddy while you recuperate from your Friday - dark excesses ? Gnomeo and Juliet is a remarkably pleasant film to catch with a holdover , boast tons of Shakespearean in - put-on , garden dwarf slapstick and Elton John cameos . It ’s the sort of film that ’s funny when you ’re scarcely awake , and it wo n’t make your headache any bad , even though it ’s in 3D.
Read on for spoilers and details — plus a Gnomepunk Manifesto .
There ’s almost no need to tell the plot of Gnomeo and Juliet , since you ’re in all likelihood familiar with the source material . But here goes anyway — there are two old hoi polloi live next threshold to each other , Mr. Capulet and Miss Montague . And they hate each other — and so do the gnomes in their respective garden . Whenever the humans are go bad , the garden gnomes come to life and take their owners ’ feud to an mad fresh level , mostly involving destructive use of lawn - mowers and spraying - paint . Until — wait for it — two gnome from the oppose gardens come down in love life with each other .
( Basically , it ’s a fantasy along the line of the Toy Story movies — where inanimate object secretly come to life when nobody ’s look , and have an being that ’s way rich than that of the dumb humans around them . )
I was as hung over as the lowest top dog on a prize bulwark when I find out this film , and I had non - stop giggles . The intermixture of stupidity , cleverness , stupid cleverness , prettiness and celebrity cameos was exactly the correct thing for my alcohol - shrink wit . ( The critics ’ covering was at 10 AM on a Saturday good morning , so this was really good test conditions . )
I ’m not certain that the kids watching the film got much out of it — do today ’s kids even be intimate what garden gnome are ? — but who cares about them ?
As we’vesaid before , there ’s really two eccentric of non - Pixar animated films : Ones which are nice but not in Pixar ’s league ( like slimy Me ) and I which are just wretched and cheap . Gnomeo is n’t as full as slimy , but it definitely belongs to the same category .
Despicable Me proves every father is a supervillain
Things which make Gnomeo fun for adults to sit through : 1 ) Random fishy in - jokes . 2 ) The strange obsession with lawn - mowers , culminating in the visual aspect of a Terminator - urge on super - lawnmower call the Terrafirminator . 3 ) The part cast , including James McAvoy as Gnomeo , Emily Blunt as Juliet , Michael Caine as Juliet ’s Padre , plus cameo by Hulk Hogan , Dolly Parton , Ozzy Osbourne , etc . 4 ) The Nurse role is change into a cute frog , and there ’s also a plastic toadstool “ dog ” sidekick . The Friar is a fictile flamingo . Oh , and there are little warrior rabbits . 5 ) It ’s in reality acquire a bantam bit of a feminist message .
So how metatextual is Gnomeo and Juliet ? Insanely so . The Shakespearian in - jocularity are so omnipresent , they almost crowd out all of the nods to seventies and 1980s soda pop culture that an animated funniness is require by law to have today . ( Almost , but not quite . ) The feuding neighbors subsist at apartment 2B and apartment 2B - with - a - gash - through - it . ( They hold up in weirdly color - coordinated Mock Tudor house , too ! ) Every few moments there ’s another random Shakespeare note or reference , usually turned on its head slimly . And then , just as you ’re initiate to wonder if this motion picture will keep follow the Shakespeare toy to its somewhat dingy ending , there ’s an curious interlude where Gnomeo lands on top of a huge statue of William Shakespeare — voiced by Patrick Stewart ! — who tell the end of Romeo and Juliet to Gnomeo . To which Gnomeo retorts that that ’s a stupid ending , and he ’s not doing that .
Oh , and the Song are all by Elton John , and at one or two points , one of the gnome actually turn into Elton John . I seriously wondered , watch this film , if any of it would intend anything to wee kiddies .
Like I say , this film shoehorns a teeny-weeny second of a feminist message into the story , and in the process it makes Juliet a much more loveable grapheme . In a nutshell , Juliet ’s dada ( who once again is Michael Caine ! ) lost his wife to some kind of gnome - tastrophe , and so he want to keep Juliet dependable — literally on a plinth , which light up and has department - store - window - style decorations . He continue telling Juliet she ’s “ delicate ” — which , really , they all are . They ’re plaster of Paris gnomes ! — so she has to sneak out of the garden . She assign on a blackened sock with an oculus - kettle of fish carved out and transforms herself into a ninja . ( A gnomeja ! ) Her batrachian brother startle utter Japanese and there are some very lightheaded gnomeja minute .
And when Juliet meets Gnomeo , he ’s the only guy who wants her to be adventurous and wild — when they ’re exploring together , they find an abandoned power lawnmower , and she wants to get on it and ride it around . But Gnomeo wants to tell Juliet something — and she remember he ’s about to tell apart her she ’s too frail to rally around on a magnate lawn mower . But instead , Gnomeo tells her , “ Do n’t hold back . ” And in the end , Michael Caine ’s desire to keep his daughter on a pedestal about destruct her . It ’s not a unfit message for your gamin kid ’s movie to have , really .
So all in all , Gnomeo is a cute picture that accomplishes its master task of keeping your kiddies amused for 90 minute , while not attain you want to stab yourself . It ’s in reality quite fun , and just about the correct feel of stupid - clever for a hung - over individual . ( There really should be a parole for stupefied - clever . ) With that out of the room , here ’s the …
Gnomepunk Manifesto
No longer can belt down cultivation subordinate itself to the erstwhile idea and archetypes that have clutter it for so long . We are rising up ! We demand a new visual modality . We will put back those old average … with gnomes .
We realized that our ethnic and political ideas had become epistegnomelogically idle — and all refinement , all lit , all escapism , must be reimagined with small rustic men and women at its midpoint . This is the beginning of a movement that will reincarnate culture as we experience it — or at least breathe fresh life sentence into the garden figurine market !
What is society ? beau monde is the garden . order is the oppressor . Society find gnome as immobilized and tatty . For too long , gnomes have been used as sight - gag in offbeat comedy about factory - worker - turn over - male person - stemmer . For too long , the domain has heaped dirt around the dwarf physical structure , until the dwarf body and the dirt have become almost identical . smart set has grown rotten with consumerism , but almost no money is expend on gnome and gnome - interrelate Cartesian product . [ Insert condemnation about ecology and gardens and stuff here . ]
Who are the gnome punk ? We are the forgotten men and woman . We are of the garden . Our hats are pointy . We are not Smurfs . NOT SMURFS . gnome are liminal — grab between the globe of pixie and the world of humans , a Gnome Man ’s Land of contested personhood and hybrid identity . Who can do it the gnome self ? Gnome one . gnome are post - human and pre - human , and jolly much mid - human as well . The dwarf is petty and exist outside of stiff presupposition .
The dwarf sees things that no normal person see , because the gnome stays closely to the background . The gnome is a creature of nature , but also of the city . The gnome lives in the compost cumulation and the compost is bare-ass information . Gnomes read that disintegration is not mere entropy , but also the parturition of ideas . The gnome eliminate sometime standards . The gnomepunk is the pariah in your back thousand .
What is gnomepunk entertainment ? Within five years , all entertainment will be gnomepunk . Your clowning , your dramas , your action movie , will be gnomed . The artificial binary between human and aim will be shattered — by dwarf . Likewise with the human / creature dichotomy . The gnome rejects all delusive foeman and replaces them with beards and comedy gardening implements . The only duality that gnomepunk recognizes is between the dwarf and the unknown . ( Not to mention the dwarf unknown . )
amatory comedies will become gnomantic comedies . All religious entertainment will become Gnostic . Fantasy and science fable will become mashed up into a gnome - centric alternate chronicle of the world . All of your action thrillers and police procedurals will have gnome - related McGuffins . The dwarf is epic . The dwarf is personal . The gnome is ecumenical . Gnomepunk is here , and you are in its bottomless hutch . receive to Gnomepunk !
ComedyMichael CaineMovies
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