I'll just get this out of the way and say that I'm not a big fan of the works of William Shakespeare's works. I think they're too complex to read and the stories that he writes are sometimes pretty uninteresting. I've tried to read a few of his most famous plays, but sadly I could never get into them. One of those plays I've read was arguably his most famous one of all, the romance "Romeo and Juliet". I've also seen a few film adaptations of it, preferably the 1967 version and the 1996 version, both of which I have oddly enough enjoyed, though it could be because I love film more than literature. Now, we have another adaptation this time with garden gnomes known as "Gnomeo and Juliet" and in all honesty, it's rather forgettable. It's definitely not a bad movie, but there's really nothing under the surface with this film. It didn't really leave much of an impact with me, and here's why.
The story like I said is basically Romeo and Juliet with garden gnomes. Essentially, there are two neighbors named Montague and Capulet who despise each other and when they both go out to do their daily business, their garden gnomes come to life. To differentiate which gnomes is owned by which neighbor is pretty easy as Montague's wear blue and the Capulet's wear Red and also similar to the neighbors, the leading gnomes of each garden (Maggie Smith and Michael Caine) hate each other respectively. I think you can guess what's coming next. The son of the Lady Bluebury, Gnomeo (James McCoy) and the daughter Lord Redbrick, Juliet (Emily Blunt) eventually meet and fall in love while trying to keep their love a secret. It's nothing really special.
The movie is just bland. The story goes everywhere you expect it to go and the jokes don't really excite you or do anything you wouldn't expect to happen. They just come and go and are fairly predictable to put lightly. The characters are not especially to go wild about either. Both Gnomeo and Juliet are nice and say some funny things, but don't have anything to stand about them. Even their friends are nothing special. You have Gnomeo's friend Benny (who's modeled after Benvolio) and Juliet's friend Nanette (who's modeled after her nurse) but both are pretty forgettable. The only character I found myself really enjoying was the character of Featherstone played by the fantastic Jim Cummings. He's a plastic flamingo modeled after Friar Lawrence and actually did have some funny things to say and I was actually legitimately touched by his backstory. Even the animation, I did find nice. It wasn't incredibly good, but it had some good detail and I did like the look of the scenery.
Though out of those two things, do I really recommend watching "Gnomeo and Juliet"? Not really. It's mostly a harmless movie that younger children might enjoy, but for those that are above the age of twelve, it's a good film to pass on. There are better adaptations of the famous play out there than this and if I were you, I'd check them out instead of this film.
