Ten Stars or Less

It is tough to imagine there are other animation companies out there, besides Pixar and Dreamworks, the heavyweight champions of the genre. You can always tell the quality of the product by the studio that releases it. Gnomeo and Juliet came into our lives in 2011, and even though a movie about talking garden gnomes seems pretty funny, it wasn’t. I can from the opening of Sherlock Gnomes, there many actually be more of these adventures to come, as Paramount Animation tries to turn classic tales into garden tales. The animation was pretty good and a handful of pop culture reference jokes made me chuckle a few times. Where I felt the movie messed up is the bad guy is revealed like three minutes into the movie and there was really way too many references to Elton John. Whether he financed the money, the story, or the production company, there was seriously no need for every song to be his. Remember too much of a good thing can end up bad. I was ultimately impressed that the theater wasn’t sold out and the kids who came out to see this movie on spring break (in Canada) was really quiet. Usually kids movies are a disaster for notice and messes, but maybe the kids are not into the gnomes much like the adults are. Lucky for everyone involved with the project already have established careers, so no real harm can come out of this, even if they fall and shatter. 2/10