Film: Harold and the Purple Crayon

I usually enjoy the mixture of animation with the real world, so that is not the problem with Harold and the Purple Crayon.

It’s about the crayon that draws anything and it becomes real. A bit like a 3D printer. One day, the author, who Harold believed to be his dad, stopped writing. So he uses the magic crayon to draw a door into the real world and go in search of the ‘old man’.

The crayon seemed to solve problems a bit too easily, such as drawing a new tyre to replace a flat one or creating a plane that nobody knows how to fly. This is good to set the scene but got tiresome quickly.

Among the three characters who popped out of the page and into real life, I liked Moose's nervous character the best.

Inevitably, the crayon fell into the wrong hands and that is the main adventure in the film.

I’d not heard of the American book on which this is based. I did like the child's belief that a purple crayon could draw anything he wanted. The irresponsible parenting didn’t sit well in 2024 though.

Whereas so many made-for-kids films have content for adults, this one is strictly for kids.

6½/10