In my distant memory, I recall reading a book about a boy who had a magic crayon that he could draw anything, and it would appear. When Harold and the Purple Crayon started with a short animated pre-credit sequence, those memories came flooding back, so there was an element of nostalgia that I could at least sit back and enjoy something from my childhood. Sadly, those happy memories soon disappeared as this pretty dreadful version of that story became nothing more than a childish, often sickeningly sentimental family film that annoyed me.

Harold has lived in a make-believe world with his two friends, Moose and Porcupine, as the voice in their world, The Old Man, guided them through their adventures. That is until The Old Man stopped narrating. Harold desperately wants to find him and has to enter the real world, leading him to befriend a young boy, Mel, and his single mother, Terri, who is getting them to help Harold find his missing Old Man.

The short animated sequence is sweet and charming and could have easily been the basis for a feature. Instead, former animation director Carlos Saldanha, whose work includes Ice Age and Rio, decides that there isn’t enough road for the film to be just animation, so he brings Harold and his friends into the real world and replaces the animated characters with actors. Then he delivers the fish-out-of-water tale with extra stupidity, as Harold and his friends, now in human form, cause chaos with the lack of understanding about the natural world and Harold’s extraordinary crayon, which he uses to create a whole series of objects from bikes, to tyres to a plane.

This would have been perfectly acceptable if they had kept the charm from the first five minutes. Instead, they ramp up the comedy so much that it becomes forced and never once particularly funny. Realising that the film would lack a lot of plot if they just focused on Harold’s mission to find his narrator, they add a couple of subplots that make matters worse.

Firstly, there’s Gary, the Librarian, a man who has written a bizarre young adult fantasy that no publisher wants to produce and who has a crush on Mel’s mother. Most creepily, he has made her a princess in his novel. When he discovers that Harold has a magic crayon and that he has come from a children’s book, he uses this against the film’s title character.

Secondly, there’s Mel and Terri. In the most cringing manner possible, they are the film’s emotion. The young boy, a loner with an invisible lizard-type creature as a friend, is bullied because of his odd behaviour. This is linked with his father passing away, leaving his mother to bring him up alone, and who had thrown away her love for music to work in a supermarket to make ends meet. Maybe thinking this doesn’t sound too bad, but it all feels contrived and shoe-horned into a tale that doesn’t need to be brimming with over-sentimentality.

What makes the film even worse is the casting. Zachary Levi, obviously looking for something to replace his Shazam turn, is terrible as Harold. The character, supposed to be child-like, does nothing more than gurn and over-milk his facial expressions, like some weird man-child. Not helping the situation is Lil Rey Howery as Moose, who gets annoying very quickly. The usually solid Zooey Deschanel looks embarrassed throughout, and only Jemaine Clement as Gary comes close to saving the film with some nice throw-away lines.

Harold and the Purple Crayon is, without a doubt, awful and embarrassing for all involved. It is never funny or exciting and just makes you wonder why it was made in the first place. I can’t see it being a hit, and to be honest, it doesn’t deserve to be. Avoid it at all costs.

1 out of 5

Director: Carlos Saldanha

Starring: Zachary Levi, Lil Rey Howery, Benjamin Bottani, Zooey Deschanel, Tanya Reyolds, Jermaine Clement, Alfred Molina, Pete Gardener, Camille Guaty

Written by David Guion, Michael Handelman and (based on the book) Crockett Johnson

Running Time: 92 mins

Cert: PG

Release date: 1st August 2024