Horrid Henry (3D, like we care) is the first big-screen adaptation of Francesca Simon’s bestselling children’s books, and if you would like to save yourself a trip to the cinema you can recreate the experience at home by tuning into some super-noisy, busy, brightly coloured Saturday-morning kids’ TV programme while simultaneously bashing your head between a pair of cymbals and wishing you were dead.
This film is an agony from beginning to end. The plot is a chaotic mishmash of several others via a number of nonsensical detours, plus all the characters, without exception, are appallingly drawn. There is not a scintilla of truth in any of them. Not a sniff. You may say an adult would think this, but I attended the screening along with my two nephews — Fred, nine, and Harry, 12 — and they both declared it abysmal before, of course, they strongarmed me into Nando’s where, as it happens, we fast became engaged in a lively discussion about the issues of the day. Only kidding. They strongarmed me into Nando’s and then quickly had my phone off me and found a game I didn’t even know I had. Young kids are pretty savvy, not that you’d know it from this.
OK, Henry (Theo Stevenson) is a naughty boy who hates school, doesn’t do his homework and torments his younger brother, as well as all girls. I’d put his age at around ten and, I’m assuming, he’s meant to be a lovable scally but the part is written so badly, with such zero attention to lovability, he isn’t even likable. He is a charmless, annoying brat. ‘I’d punch him,’ said Harry. ‘Me, too,’ said Fred. ‘Join the queue,’ I added, perhaps unnecessarily.
Now, Henry must win the day on various counts. He must triumph over his teacher, Miss Battleaxe, as played by the usually magnificent Angelica Huston, who, in this instance, appears to be channelling Robin Williams as Mrs Doubtfire, complete with a disturbing Scottish accent. It’s most peculiar. He must also take his rock band to victory at the school talent contest. (Why? To interject musical scenes; no other reason.) And there is also a villain in the form of Richard E. Grant, the evil headmaster of a rival school who wants Henry’s school to close down so he can snaffle the pupils and charge them exorbitant fees. So it’s part School of Rock and it’s part Daddy Day Care (although that was vying nursery providers, admittedly) and it’s all 100 per cent rubbish.
This is a film that’s woefully misjudged every which way you look. The 3D serves no purpose whatsoever. As directed by Nick Moore, it’s so primary-coloured and fidgety and frantic and relentlessly LOUD it never gives its characters sufficient screen time to develop, and never gives us anything to care about. Plus, the humour is pitiful. It’s an adult’s idea as to what kids this age would laugh about, and a dense adult’s idea at that. Kids calling each other ‘bogey-brain’ and ‘nappy-head’ and farting every now and then won’t exactly dazzle the target age group. I didn’t hear Harry or Fred laugh once. Harry even said afterwards: ‘It was patronising.’ I think if a nine- and 12-year-old find your film puerile, you have to be in serious trouble.
And the performances? Wretched. That sounds stark but, I’m sorry, there is no other way of putting it. The kids act as if they’ve been stage-schooled to within an inch of their life, while all the adults mug it up in a way that manages to be both tiring and tiresome. I should alert you to this, too: I saw a poster for the film on my way home and, included in the picture, as well as billed up high, are Noel Fielding, Jo Brand and Kimberley Walsh, all of whom are effectively not in it. Noel Fielding has one line, at most, Jo Brand says two words — ‘vegetable stew’, if you are interested — and Kimberley Walsh holds a baby while it projectile vomits.
It’s a swizz. I know, I know, it’s the school holidays and you have to find something to do with your kids that doesn’t involve glue and glitter and whatnot, but this? I think not. You’re better off staying at home, turning the TV up, and crashing your head between cymbals. It won’t be fun, but at least you won’t be ripped off for special glasses you don’t need.
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