QZ qz thoughts
a blog from Eli the Bearded
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Gnomeo and Juliet


My wife had an art opening to attend last night, and so to make the kids excited not to spend the whole evening there, I took them to a movie, the newly opened Gnomeo and Juliet. I saw the 3-D version, because that's what was playing at a good time.

The movie does not attempt to conceal that it is a rewriten Romeo and Juliet, it opens with a gnome on a stage reading the introduction to the play — with a hook fashioned from a coat hanger trying to pull him off stage.

The story is a basic outline of the famous tragedy, here made into a comedy, acted out by plaster lawn gnomes (mostly) that come alive when no one is looking in the same way the toys of Toy Story do. These gnomes won't survive a long fall though, and death by shattering is a reoccuring worry.

Overall it's mildly funny, entirely harmless, and needlessly 3-D. Some famous musician did the music and you can tell.

Two pink plastic flamingos out of four.

Before the movie there was a trailer for a IMAX wild baby orphan animals something or other. It was one of the 3-D trailers and it put the rest of the 3-D experience to shame. This was not an IMAX screen, so the trailer itself wouldn't have been IMAX, but still it was very beautifully shot, crisp 3-D, beautiful details in every corner of every shot. Whatever the interest or value of the story, the filming looks gorgeeous enought to justify seeing it.

I was not impressed by the Cars II trailer, but many Pixar trailers have not impressed me and I've still liked the movie.

Gnomeo and Juliet at IMDB

IMAX Born to be Wild at IMDB

Cars 2 at IMDB

Final thought: can't remember any other trailers