Film Review – HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON (2024): Zachary Levi Disappoints in a Well-Meaning but Flat and Dull Family Film

Harold and the Purple Crayon Review

Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024) Film Review, a movie directed by Carlos Saldanha, written by David Guion and Michael Handelman and starring Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani, Zooey Deschanel, Tanya Reynolds, Jermaine Clement, Alfred Molina, Peter Gardner, Camille Guaty, Ravi Patel, Zele Avradopoulos, Boston Pierce, Vartan, Brisco De Poalo, Lauren Halperin, Seth Zane and Catherine Davis.

It’s hard to tell people a movie is bad when it has good intentions but director Carlos Saldanha’s Harold and the Purple Crayon borders on almost being unwatchable at times. It’s based on a cute story by Crockett Johnson but doesn’t have the magic it needs to sustain viewer interest. Whereas a family film like the recent gem, IF, can maintain an audience’s attention throughout its entire running time, a movie like Saldanha’s film should exist on an equal playing field. Instead, Harold and the Purple Crayon looks cheaply made and feels like the heartfelt emotions it wanted to stir up were left out of the equation except for maybe the last couple of minutes and, even then, it’s too little, too late.

Zachary Levi plays Harold, a man who has been able to draw his whole life with a purple crayon. He lives in a world he created and has the power to control his existence to an extent but when he attempts to go to the “real world,” things are not what he expects them to be. He wants to find his dad (or rather, his creator) who he refers to as, “old man.” Will he and his friends, Moose (played by Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds), find the father and get to experience a nice time in the world in which normal humans live? Harold befriends a kid named Mel (Benjamin Bottani) who has a nice mom named Terry (Zooey Deschanel). I was hoping Harold would fall in love with Terry and they would find a way to combine the story’s worlds but no such luck. The movie decides to focus on Harold’s search for his “dad” and the dire plans of a villain named Gary (Jermaine Clement) who wants to fulfill his own wicked schemes with the purple crayon.

When Harold arrives in the human world, he is dressed oddly and automatically someone says he’s dressed weird so he gets new clothes without paying for them and a pair of shoes to boot. Only in the movies. Moose and Porcupine look like humans in the regular world so their behavior is oddly peculiar to those around them. Harold uses his crayon to help Terry when her car gets a flat tire. We eventually discover that Mel has an imaginary friend dragon called Carl who he summons when he needs help in his life. But, Carl is hardly in the movie. We get stuck with a mundane friendship between Mel and Harold that Terry soon disapproves of and with good reason considering he’s a strange man. Still, Terry invites the quirky Harold to stay in their home. Only in the movies.

This film’s story line is a premise that really needs much more creativity to flourish. It lacks that credibility that would make us believe in Harold and his friends. We get numerous scenes with a boring bad guy, Gary, and it’s hardly of interest whether or not Harold will save Mel or if Terry will save them both from Gary or whatever. In today’s set of movies, there are formulas which are tried and true. A “PG-rated” romance between Harold and Terry is the basic expectation but it’s glossed over here in favor of kiddish humor that falters more than it succeeds.

Zachary Levi tries hard. Lil Rel Howery is always enthusiastic and Tanya Reynolds is quirky enough. They’re ultimately not the picture’s biggest problem. The acting by Zooey Deschanel feels phoned in and Benjamin Bottani, as her son, gives his heart to a performance that the movie doesn’t deserve.

Trashing a movie like Harold and the Purple Crayon is not my style. However, it lacks the basic ingredients to entertain modern-day audiences, even by family film standards. This picture would have been better if it took a formula and ran with it rather than plodding along with no real goal in mind except to offer words of wisdom at the end about the importance of living life to the fullest. I love formulaic movies if they’re done right. Audiences will expect more than the movie delivers in terms of the merging of the fantasy world and the human world. This movie doesn’t deliver on the most basic essentials that are necessary for it to succeed as a whole.

Harold and the Purple Crayon isn’t a very good movie. That much has already been established but its heart is in the right place and if this was a short film, it could have gotten away with its flat characters and threadbare story line. Coming in a summer movie season with many big blockbusters out there only makes it feel more insufficient than it probably would be any other time of year.

Rating: 4.5/10

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