Gnomeo and Juliet in the garden. Really? Gnomes?

Gnomeo & Juliet

2011

Summer’s winding down. Why not have some fun with gnomes?

Shakespeare’s play of young lovers and the challenges they face has been told and retold hundreds of times, but never with adorable talking garden gnomes. Putting all reverence to the original work aside, “Gnomeo & Juliet” is a fun, animated outing and given the movie’s young target audience, the end is scripted differently than the original.

Clearly, this film is not for the literary purist. It is for someone who enjoys dialogue interspersed with clever references to other Shakespearean classics. It’s for someone who enjoys identifying who is “voicing” various characters (i.e. Michael Caine as Lord Redbrick) and for everyone who enjoys humming along to snippets of Elton John hits. It is fun for grown-ups and little ones will enjoy the molded cast, especially the talking flamingo and Gnomeo’s sidekick, “Schroom.”

Elton John is one of the many producers of “Gnomeo & Juliet” along with a myriad of writers (including a credit for William Shakespeare). Rising stars James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are the plaster-mold lovers. But let’s face it, the star power of “Gnomeo & Juliet” comes from all the pointy-headed, cleverly posed, red and blue themed figurines who are in no doubt somehow related to the very gnomes that grace your garden.