As an elder Millennial, I’ll try and ignore my rising bile for what they did to my boy Harold here, and I’ll simply ask who was this movie for? The big screen adaptation of the classic 1955 children’s book by Crockett Johnson that celebrates the power of imagination is a mishmash of mawkish feel-good family nonsense, fantasy power wish-fulfillment, and grating fish-out-of-water comedic antics. Increasingly missable actor Zachery Levi (Shazam!) plays yet another glorified man-baby, this time as an “adult” Harold who ventures into the Real World to search for his narrator, essentially the god of his purple-hued universe. He befriends a lonely boy with a big imagination and the kid’s single mom (poor Zooey Desceanel) and life lessons are learned while “adult” Harold makes a mess of just about everything as he leaves behind chaos and disaster. Eventually Harold has a full-on wizard duel against a villainous librarian and wannabe published fantasy author played by Jermaine Clement. That’s right, Harold and the Purple Crayon transforms into a magic battle over the fate of the all-powerful ring, I mean crayon. Making matters worse is Levi’s hyperactive schtick that has been growing stale for years and is tiresome and annoying throughout the movie. It’s also quite ironic, and phony, that a movie expressly proclaiming the power of individuality and imagination is so thoroughly and depressingly generic. This should have been animated or left alone, period.

Nate’s Grade: D+