Igor [Blu-ray]

This hilarious animated twist on the classic monster movie is must-see family fun!  Determined to prove he can create his own diabolical invention, a mad scientist’s (John Cleese) nice-guy assistant, Igor (John Cusack), creates a female Franken-monster.  But his creation, Eva (Molly Shannon), is sweet and sings show tunes!  That is, until she falls into the clutches of Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard) and his shape-shifting girlfriend (Jennifer Coolidge).  Now it’s up to Igor and his sidekicks (Steve Buscemi and Sean Hayes) to save Eva – and their country – from real evildoers, including sneaky Prince Malpert (Jay Leno)!

Well I had high expectations of this movie and was really looking forward to a good animation monster flick but Igor didn’t deliver. It starts off with our main character, Igor, who dreams of being a mad scientist, like his boss Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese). When Glickenstein blows himself up, Igor, along with the help from his friends Brain (Sean Hayes) and Scamper (Steve Buscemi), set out to create a monster. After completing the creation, the female monster gets the name Eva (Molly Shannon). She's supposed to be like the Bride of Frankenstein, but ends up being compassionate and is anything but evil. She wants to become an actress and doesn’t do anything evil in the land of everything evil. We find Igor and his crew at the annual Evil Science Fair, where he must handle his temperamental monster and rival scientist Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard) who wants Igor’s monster creation for his own selfish gain.

I really think this movie doesn’t focus on it’s target audience and is too mature for the little ones at times and isn’t adult enough for the parents in it’s delivery. The story falls short as the laughs aren’t there and the story is a hodge-podge that never seems to get on track.

While the Blu-ray version has a beautiful picture, the animation isn’t as good as other animated films that have been recently released. That isn’t to say that the picture is bad, it just doesn’t have the detail that other recent releases have. The audio in DTS-HD does a fine job especially with the monstrous sounds that occur in the laboratory and when the lightning and thunder rumble setting the monster movie tone. While I think the audio was top rate, it still couldn’t help the lackluster story. I think this Blu-ray movie maybe worth renting and watching with the kids for the colors and picture quality and perhaps the moral to the story, which is, that we can choose to not be evil but be nice and courteous.