Harold and the Purple Crayon

Stream on Netflix

Runtime: 1 hour and 30 Minutes

Rated PG

Beloved characters from the children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon travel to the real world after their creator, the narrator, stops speaking to them. They quickly learn that the real world is much more difficult to live in then their own. Harold, Moose, and Porcupine manage to get themselves in over their heads, but their new real world friends may be able to help them set things right.

Themes:

Crayons, imagination, being created, imaginary friends, loss, kids, pie, old men, Ollies: Good Stuff Cheap, jobs, healing from tragedy, losing who you are, helping others, the color purple, eating crayons, friends, belonging, believing in oneself, and creativity.

Language:

Religious Exclamations - 3

One character curses in a language that he made up for a book he wrote. There is name calling such as punk, idiot, moron, stupid, and dumb.

Stuff to be aware of:

Gross - The word constipated is used in the wrong way for humor. On a prank call, in which two kids are acting like they are old, one says, “I just pooped my pants.”

Sexual - An author is reading his book aloud and mentions pectorals and nipples. One character mentions that another one is scratching his imaginary pet’s butt. One male character mentions that he “stayed the night last night” with a female. This statment is not meant to be sexual, but another character misinterprets it.

A bunch of old men get a younger lady’s cell number and call her thinking she is looking for someone to marry or date. One character makes reference to his crayon being “bigger” than another character’s. A man makes several remarks that leads the viewer to believe he has a crush on a female character. She does not seem to reciprocate the feelings. None of this is inappropriate.

Scary - There are a few creatures created by the crayon that might be scary. One is a spider-fly which has a mouth that opens wide showing teeth. It eats other bugs like a butterfly and some fireflies. Another creature is simply called Carl. He looks like of like a komodo dragon with wings. They are both seen as pets in the movie.

The end of the movie has a short battle scene in which Harold and the (kind of) villain battle it out by drawing weapons. This isn’t very intense, but there is some suspense and lots of lava. No one really gets hurt, but one one of the drawn to life creatures does get shot out of the sky with a net like weapon.

Other - A boy and his mom discuss losing their father/husband. There are two very brief scenes where two kids bully another kid. The word “intoxicated” is used about a woman’s piano skills.

Overall:

It was hard watching this movie and not doing two things.

1) Comparing it to Elf. Zooey Deschanel interacting with an ‘adult man who acts like a child in a world he doesn’t understand’ is the main thrust of the movie, but Elf does it better.

2) Asking, “why?” Why didn’t the use a kid to be Harold? Why do Moose and Porcupine turn into humans in the real world? Why does Moose become a moose again when he is scared? I tried to remind myself that this was a kid’s movie about a character from a children’s book coming to life, however a lot of the decisions real world characters in the movie make go against common sense. Wouldn’t it be better to just leave work and get your kid instead of getting two strangers you think are crazy to take your spot?

If you can get past those two things, the movie itself is very cute and has a nice message about believing in yourself and helping others. The story goes hard in one direction most of the movie and then takes a sharp turn towards the end. It’s a fish out of water story in which Harold helps a family hurting from the loss of the father. (On a side note, this was a great way to go instead of making the main male and main female characters being a romantic thing.) Then about 2/3 of the way through the story shifts gears. This is all because of an overly comical villain that seems to just be added to the story so there can be a big battle at the end of good vs not really evil, but selfish. However, the battle is a lot of fun, even if the characters create the most impractical creations to try and stop one another.

My ten and twelve year olds really enjoyed it. The kid in me enjoyed it despite its flaws, but I fear this one will not reach classic status. It has too many issues to go far, but your kids will probably love it.