Which Grinch Is Best? (The Answer Is Obvious)

Here's another exciting entry in this Holiday themed column, 25 Days Of Christmas Pop Culture! From now until Christmas Eve, I'll be tackling one piece of Christmas pop culture! It could be a book, movie, TV special, song....so long as it's festive for this time of the year, it'll be checked out in this daily column!

I've gotten really addicted to Patton Oswalts standup this week, the dudes just hilarious in his comedy. One great bit is where he talks about how a primary flaw with the Star Wars prequels is that they feel compelled to talk about the origins of beloved characters like Boba Fett and Darth Vader, which Oswalt likens to someone give you the starting ingredients for Ice Cream and saying it's just delicious as that confection.

If only Oswalt was able to tell the folks behind the 2000 Grinch movie and let them know that knowing precisely why the Grinch hates Christmas doesn't make him that more compelling as a character. What's really puzzling about the decision to base an entire feature around that premise is that the original Grinch TV special and book had a perfectly acceptable reason for the Grinch's hatred for the holiday; his heart was three sizes too small.

But that's not enough for Ron Howard (who directs the live-action Grinch movie) and crew, as they take the beloved Grinch story and make it abysmal to experience, especially with Jim Carrey romping around in a green outfit. Carrey is hit-or-miss on a normal basis for me, but good God is he deplorable here. His reliable physical comedy gets a few laughs, but otherwise he's just reprehensible, not really selling the meanness of the character nor the emotional depth the film is desperate to achieve.

As the film piles on subplot after subplot in order to do God knows what, one can easily be reminded of the original 1960's TV special that told the classic Dr. Seuss tale in a manner run by simplicity. Boris Karloff played the majority of the characters (sans Cindy Lou-Who of course) and his vocals really helped convey the Grinch's nastiness at the start of the story, while making his transformation as a character believable. But it's in Chuck Jones (who directs the special) animation that the program truly excels, as a style that bears a delightful similarity to those wonderful Road Runner and Wile E. coyote cartoons helps bring Dr. Seuss's distinctive world to life in a wondrous manner. I particularly like how the animation style helps make Max an insanely lovable presence, one whose little wave I find myself imitating constantly.

Now of course, how can creepy makeup and costumes compare to animation helmed by the incomparable Chuck Jones? But it's not just in that area where the 2000 retelling of the Grinch falls supremely short., In fact, in every aspect one could think of this Grinch just fails epically, especially in depicting the Grinch's final transformation into a person "with the strength of ten Grinches...plus two!" In the cartoon, a simple x-ray helps depict the Grinch's heart growing, before cutting to the Grinch's adorable smile. In Jim Carrey's take, a heart attack is utilized to depict this change, the kind of overcomplication that's a hallmark of a film that's not only a bizarre choice for biggest movie of 2000, but also for a film that relentlessly falls short of the 1960's special it constantly wants to supersede in quality. That's a mission, to quote Maxwell Smart, they missed by thaaaaat much.