By Back in the early 2000s Universal attempted two live action Dr. Seuss reboots starring notable comedic actors, resulting in two of the weirdest movies. While the less said about the Mike Myers starring The Cat in the Hat said the better, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (or The Grinch as the reboot prefers to be titled) starring Jim Carrey, remains a Christmas staple for reasons I still don’t understand.
While the newer film bloats the simplicity of the original story (which has a kick ass song), Jim Carrey nails the part despite me tearing up each time I see those contacts he had to stick in his eyes.
[Nick’s Flixmas is a 25 day celebration of films Nick watches every Christmas! Nick will do some analysis, review, and just generally walk down memory lane. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the ride. Merry Flixmas!]
The Grinch is, for some odd reason, my sister’s favorite Christmas film. It’s the one she used to dig out of our mountain of VHS tapes every year in order to watch it constantly. That’s just how my sister watches movies she likes. She’ll get so obsessed with a film, she just needs to watch it five or six times in a row. And since my family only had one working TV growing up, I eventually learned every bit of dialogue in The Grinch and Bring It On because of my sister’s obsessions. I remember when she first bought the DVD and subsequently lost it. She went kookoo bananas for awhile. We had to look everywhere for it. We tore through other DVD cases thinking it was switched out, under mattresses, and generally went about like that for a week. We figured it was gone until I found it in the DVD player. Not in the disc tray, mind you, but inside the inner workings of the player.
So I had to unscrew the thing, take it apart to get to the DVD, and then put it back together to play the disc for her. Haha, The Grinch isn’t even worth all of that trouble. I don’t understand why this flick is necessary when the cartoon short does such a good job doing Grinch stuff. I’m probably just sour toward it since I’ve seen it too many times. I won’t fault you for liking it, however. Jim Carrey is pretty good in it. It’s one of the few movies in the 2000s that Carrey could use his 90s cartoonish face and get away with it. Only someone like him could pull it off.
In order to get the full effect of both Grinch movies, you should watch them in tandem like I did. I still don’t like the newer film because the whole thing feels like padding, but it’s good. And when I want to criticize heavily, I end up reminding myself that it’s just a Christmas movie.
And that’s it for day 23 of Nick’s Flixmas. If you’ve stayed with me this whole time or joined in the middle of this 25 day film celebration, I’ve got two more days and two more flicks to go. Although tomorrow, uh, tomorrow’s a bit of a gift. I hope it works out as well as I’d been working on it for a few days now.