The Twits
review by Bobby Blakey
Famed writer the late Roald Dahl has had many of his stories brought to life in both live action and animation including Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG and so many more. His latest story getting the animated treatment is The Twits featuring and impressive voice cast including Johnny Vegas, Margo Martindale, Emilia Clarke, Natalie Portman, Alan Tudyk, and Jason Mantzoukas from Ralph Breaks the Internet director Phil Johnston alongside co-directors Katie Shanahan and Todd Demong. Could this film bring something fun and strange as expected or will it be a theme park that should never been open?
The Twits follows Mr. and Mrs. Twit, who are the meanest, smelliest, nastiest people in the world who also happen to own and operate the most disgusting, most dangerous, most idiotic amusement park in the world, Twitlandia. But when the Twits rise to power in their town, two brave orphans and a family of magical animals are forced to become as tricky as the Twits in order to save the city.
I want to start by saying I have never read the original Dahl story, so my review is strictly based on the film alone and not how close it is to the source material. As someone who loves animation of every kind especially when the character designs are slightly off in the vein of things like ParaNorman, Corpse Bride and Boxtrolls, then I am all in. I dove into this film, loving the look of it right away and the concept had the possibility to bring some insane fun and for me it worked but not without its issues.
The characters are all fantastically strange and weird looking and I loved the look of it all. The Twits themselves are chaotic horrible people, but still somehow fun
to watch and over the top insane. The animated style while was done with computer style animation has the look and feel of stop motion which I love in all forms. I would have loved this film to be straight up stop motion, but I applaud the look and feel of it. The attention to detail is fantastic and its creative looks of the horribly dangerous rides and invention adds to the fun.
Story wise its pretty simple and while I have no idea if it sticks to the source material, but I was entertained by it. I will say that the film drags at times and even though it runs for just over an hour and half but still feels too long at times. With some trim here and there, I think it would have been fine, but in the second act it just feels like all the fun and momentum slows to a crawl but thankfully gets back to the chaos in the final act and gets back to the fun of it all. It also walks a line between kids’ film and adult that might throw some parents off in content despites it PG rating.
It's far from perfect and maybe my love of the style and all things animation likely have me biased and if it veers too far from the source then hardcore fans of Dahl will no doubt be annoyed. I for one had a great time with it and hope Netflix keeps bringing some fun animation like these to the service.
Decide for yourself and check out The Twits streaming now on Netflix.