Harold and the Purple Crayon is probably a great movie, if you’re a pre-teen. I’m not sure kids much older than that will enjoy it too much. The characters and plot are all obvious and I didn’t get the feeling that the moral of the story really had any impact.
It’s difficult to really tell what the moral of the story is. There’s the “don’t be evil” aspect, but that’s fairly obvious. And there’s a little of the “believe in yourself” story, but that again isn’t well done in the movie. The main character only looses faith in himself for about two minutes of the story.
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There’s a little bit of the “parent’s should believe/support their children’s needs” but that too doesn’t really land. I think the story tries to have a few moral lessons and the result is that none of them really stand out.
Maybe the moral of the story is: writers should stick to only one moral of the story.
All of that aside, the antics and imagination of Harold’s drawing adventures are probably appealing to a very young five-to-ten year old children. The movie does have a 92% by the audience at RottenTomatoes, so someone enjoyed it. The critics however did not enjoy it.
Grade: B
About The Peetimes: This is a short movie, only about 80 minutes without the end credits. I would recommend the first Peetime. It’s the easiest to summarize. Neither of the Peetimes has any crazy antics that kids enjoy.
There are extra scenes during, or after, the end credits of Harold and the Purple Crayon.
| Rated: | (PG) Thematic Elements | Mild Action |
| Genres: | Adventure, Animation, Comedy |
| Starring: | Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani |
| Director: | Carlos Saldanha |
| Writer(s): | David Guion, Michael Handelman, Crockett Johnson |
| Language: | English |
| Country: | United States |
Plot
Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life.
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