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Description

Movie: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Year: 2000
Director: Ron Howard

To this day, Dr. Suess’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” remains a classic. It has the traditional Dr. Suess charm and Grinch’s arc is honestly pretty compelling, starting out as this malicious, calm, and generally unpleasant grouch who starts out trying to steal the holiday magic from the Whos, but learns the true meaning of Christmas and does his first kind deed of bringing back the presents as a gesture of good will, thus righting his wrongs.

And surprisingly enough, Illumination’s version of the Grinch is also pretty good. The jokes are decently funny, the imagery is pretty cool, and I like how Grinch is more akin to Kuzco, starting out as hilarious but unlikeable, slowly learning his lesson through the course of the story. It’s a surprisingly nice twist on Dr. Suess’ tale.

And then there’s the 2000s version of the Grinch. No one really talks about this version and we’re about to find out why.

[ The City Streets (From "No Straight Roads")]
We open in Whoville, a town unbelievably obsessed with Christmas. I didn’t know this movie took place in a mall during late October.
Honestly, the Whos here look pretty ugly. Not all things in a drawing look pleasant in 3D. They might end up coming out looking like a horrendous demonic abomination. And Whoville itself looks relatively unpleasant. Smog and muted colors are pretty much everywhere in the town. There’s sometimes a creative visual and/or concept, but that’s about it.
We cut to Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two (Even though she looks 7 or something). She’s apparently not liking how materialistic Whoville is during the holidays.
And that’s another thing, the Whos are needlessly materialistic. This is honestly a pretty dumb move. In the original story, they mostly celebrated Christmas to themselves, usually being humble about it. True, they were materialistic on the Illumination version. But the difference there is that they weren’t so competitive and smug about it.

We cut to Cindy’s brothers Drew and Stew climbing up to Grinch’s mountain with a couple of girls. Drew and Stew are reluctant to go in, but one of the girls convince them to do so because they’re both simps I guess. But when they opened the door, they get FNAF jumpscared screw off.
It turns out it’s just Max who’s scaring them. We then see the Grinch, and to be honest, I dunno if Jim Carrey really hits the mark.
He’s constantly nasally and is never without a stupid expression. But honestly, I get some ironic enjoyment from Jim Carrey’s performance. With the delivery of his lines, you can feel that there’s passion, even if the writing doesn’t do much to help it.

We cut back to Cindy Lou and her dad. All of a sudden, Drew and Stew come by.
Lou: What happened to you?
Drew: It was the Grinch!
Everyone in Whoville then drops what they’re doing. Honestly, if the Grinch had done something bad enough to warrant his name being mentioned causing a panic, this scene would be a lot more funny.
At the post office, Grinch causes more trouble.
Grinch: Jury duty! Jury duty! Jury duty! Blackmail! Pink slip! Chain letter! Eviction notice! Jury duty!
*Pfffft*. This movie doesn’t deserve Jim Carrey’s delightfully hammy performance.

Cindy Lou finds the Grinch and in panic, slips into package thing. Grinch tries leaving, but Max convinces him to save Cindy Lou. If they were trying to make Grinch like Kuzco, they would’ve made him saving Cindy Lou something he did willingly without reluctance. Because it took Max nudging him to do so, it comes off as hollow.
To cover up this good deed, Grinch wraps Cindy Lou in the wrapping paper and heads of. Because everyone in Whoville has to be an idiot, Cindy Lou’s father thinks she was getting into the Christmas spirit.

When Cindy Lou and her dad head back home, they see Betty (The mom) using all the lights from the house to try and out-decoration Martha May Whovier, who apparently has all the social credit in Whoville. This would be a lot funnier if it was relevant to the plot.

After the Grinch goes home to mount crumpit through the town dumpster, we get the song “Where are you Christmas”, which is sung by Cindy Lou. I get that Cindy Lou is a child, but she’s not really a good singer. Most of the song is telling us her mindset, which we already know about.

After that totally not pointless song, we cut back to the green man of the hour.
Grinch: Those Whos are hard to frazzle Max. But we did our worst, and that’s all that matters.
Sounds like a direct quote from Ron Howard when making this movie.

After some pointless scenes with Grinch, we cut to Cindy Lou asking people about the Grinch to find out why he’s so nasty. Since we cut to her goofing back and forth between people, I’ll just talk about the flashback scenes themselves and what happens.

[ Arthur - Flashback Sound Effect]

[ Mega Man: Powered Up Music - Ice Man Extended]
In this universe, babies come down from umbrella things called “Pumbersellas” and land on people’s porches. I guess the Stork union finally went on strike.
Random Who: Hey honey! Our baby’s here!…He looks just like your boss.
Okay, that was a good line.
Grinch’s pumbersella lands in the tree of these two old ladies’ house and they take him in. When in school, he starts simping after Martha May, which is seemingly mutual, and so does the kid version of Mayor Augustus May Who. Everyone makes fun of Grinch for having a beard at 8 years old, so after he wrecks a bunch of stuff to make Martha May a gift, he shaves his beard, but because he’s 8 years old, it doesn’t go well, and everyone mocks him for it, causing him to wreck the place.

I want you to keep in mind that by now, the original 2D animated version would’ve ended.

Anyway, Whobilation (Basically Mardi Gras but Christmas) is about to happen, and the abominations-
TAKE 2
…and the Whos are looking forward to it.
Mayor Augustus May Who: And now, the nominations, for the Who among us-
[ SpongeBob SquarePants Production Music - Superquick A]
He said it! He said among us!
10/10, best movie ever.

So Cindy Lou nominates The Grinch for Holiday Cheermeister, but Augustus May Who is all “Nah, he’s not poggers” but Cindy Lou is all “Um actually the Grinch needs it the most plus ratio”.

Back at Mount Crumpit, Grinch is annoyed at the Whobilation music, so he drowns out the noise with the power of loud noises and Jim Carrey’s incompetently amazing acting.
Cindy Lou then invites Grinch to be Cheermeister. He denies, but after Cindy Lou says there’s an award, Grinch wants to be a part of it, also because of Martha May being there.
One thing to not is that when Grinch is pulling the tablecloth from the table so he can wear it, the pots and pans were originally supposed to fall off, but because they didn’t, Jim Carrie improvised and knocked them over himself. Goes to show how dedicated the man was to his job.

After deciding to wear some yodeler’s overalls in an admittedly funny gag, it’s time for Whobilation. And how does Grinch get there? You do not want to know how the Grinch shows up.
…
Fine.
He flings from the Dumpit to Crumpit and falls face first between Martha May’s…uh…ah…
Nope, I have too much artistic integrity to finish that sentence.

[ Pokémon Sword & Shield - Team Yell Battle Music (HQ)]
After that…unique scene, Whobilation happens. After Grinch gets an electric razor during the Christmas pass-on, he gets PTSD flashbacks which aren’t helped by the Mayor proposing to Martha May and offering her a car. Because Grinch is Grinch, he scratches up the car.
Grinch: That’s what it’s about. That’s what it’s always been about! Gifts! Giftsgiftsgiftsgiftsgiftsgifts! You want to know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me. In your garbage. You see what I’m saying? In your garbage! I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump! And the avarice! The avarice never ends! “I want golf clubs! I want diamonds! I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored, and sell it to make glue!” I don’t wanna make waves, but this WHOLE CHRISTMAS SEASON is…STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!
Hey, you know how in the bad episodes of Family Guy, Quagmire is usually the voice of reason despite being a terrible person? Well, the situation here isn’t nearly half as insulting, but it’s still present.
Look, movie, I get your moral that Christmas isn’t about materialism, but having it come out of the Grinch’s mouth isn’t the way to do it.

After that, we get probably the most unironically funny scene in he movie, where the Grinch causes chaos all throughout Whoville. Jim Carrey’s delivery, everyone reacting to Grinch’s chaos, and the sheer pandemonium Grinch causes make for a pretty hilarious sequence.

In Grinch’s rampage, he destroys the big boi tree, an endeavor that becomes pointless since Whoville has a spare. This leads to the Grinch to FINALLY start his plan to steal Christmas.
Alright, in the Illumination adaptation (Which is actually halfway competent) The Grinch’s ploy to steal the holiday cheer from the Whos happened throughout the movie, but here, it doesn’t show up until the last third, making the rest of the movie just feel pointless.

After Grinch makes his plans to a remix of “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch” which actually sounds pretty good, we get the sequence of him stealing Christmas.
Nothing too notable happens, so I’ll say that Cindy Lou not knowing that the Grinch is disguising himself as Santa makes her look like a *Dolphin Noise*ing moron since she already saw him multiple times. It was better in Illumination’s version because Grinch at least had the beard.

Also we get a completely plot relevant scene of the mayor kissing Max’s butt for the Grinch’s diversion.
…
Anyway…

When dawn arises, as Grinch is about to rip the gifts over the edge of the cliff, the Whos wake up and realize their Christmas stuff is gone.
In the original version, the Whos didn’t really care that the gifts were stolen. They just went to the tree and sang. It was supposed to help the Grinch learn that Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Here, everyone keeps blaming each other for what Grinch did. There’s also no transition to them being upset to them being accepting. In Illumination’s Grinch, the Who’s were definitely bummed over not getting any gifts, but it worked because there was a smoother transition to them being sad to happy.

Back up on the cliff, Grinch realizes the Who’s not being sad and comes to the realization that Christmas means a little bit more. Now, this would be sweet, but the problem is that Grinch has been a goblin throughout the whole movie and basically ruined Whobilation, the moment doesn’t feel earned. In the original and Illumination version, he didn’t do much to actually ruin Christmas except try stealing the holiday, so there was more weight to the moment.

So yeah, you know the drill, Grinch gives the presents back, Martha May rejects the Mayor, and the Grinch carves the roast beast, ending the movie.

[ Spongebob Closing Theme Song 10 Minute Loop]
And that was the live action Grinch movie. Honestly, I know it’s not that great, but I got a lot of ironic enjoyment here. Like, it misses the point of the original book big time, Grinch’s arc isn’t really well handled, and Jim Carrey is unfit for the Grinch. But honestly, it’s incompetence kind of gives off a charm. Like, you can tell passion went into it, and while it lead to something sub-par, it’s nonetheless enjoyable in how bad it is. I’d watch this as a “So bad it’s good” Christmas movie.

Final Rating: -4.4/10 (A negative score indicates ironic enjoyment)

Description

Movie: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Year: 2000
Director: Ron Howard

To this day, Dr. Suess’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” remains a classic. It has the traditional Dr. Suess charm and Grinch’s arc is honestly pretty compelling, starting out as this malicious, calm, and generally unpleasant grouch who starts out trying to steal the holiday magic from the Whos, but learns the true meaning of Christmas and does his first kind deed of bringing back the presents as a gesture of good will, thus righting his wrongs.

And surprisingly enough, Illumination’s version of the Grinch is also pretty good. The jokes are decently funny, the imagery is pretty cool, and I like how Grinch is more akin to Kuzco, starting out as hilarious but unlikeable, slowly learning his lesson through the course of the story. It’s a surprisingly nice twist on Dr. Suess’ tale.

And then there’s the 2000s version of the Grinch. No one really talks about this version and we’re about to find out why.

[ The City Streets (From "No Straight Roads")]
We open in Whoville, a town unbelievably obsessed with Christmas. I didn’t know this movie took place in a mall during late October.
Honestly, the Whos here look pretty ugly. Not all things in a drawing look pleasant in 3D. They might end up coming out looking like a horrendous demonic abomination. And Whoville itself looks relatively unpleasant. Smog and muted colors are pretty much everywhere in the town. There’s sometimes a creative visual and/or concept, but that’s about it.
We cut to Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two (Even though she looks 7 or something). She’s apparently not liking how materialistic Whoville is during the holidays.
And that’s another thing, the Whos are needlessly materialistic. This is honestly a pretty dumb move. In the original story, they mostly celebrated Christmas to themselves, usually being humble about it. True, they were materialistic on the Illumination version. But the difference there is that they weren’t so competitive and smug about it.

We cut to Cindy’s brothers Drew and Stew climbing up to Grinch’s mountain with a couple of girls. Drew and Stew are reluctant to go in, but one of the girls convince them to do so because they’re both simps I guess. But when they opened the door, they get FNAF jumpscared screw off.
It turns out it’s just Max who’s scaring them. We then see the Grinch, and to be honest, I dunno if Jim Carrey really hits the mark.
He’s constantly nasally and is never without a stupid expression. But honestly, I get some ironic enjoyment from Jim Carrey’s performance. With the delivery of his lines, you can feel that there’s passion, even if the writing doesn’t do much to help it.

We cut back to Cindy Lou and her dad. All of a sudden, Drew and Stew come by.
Lou: What happened to you?
Drew: It was the Grinch!
Everyone in Whoville then drops what they’re doing. Honestly, if the Grinch had done something bad enough to warrant his name being mentioned causing a panic, this scene would be a lot more funny.
At the post office, Grinch causes more trouble.
Grinch: Jury duty! Jury duty! Jury duty! Blackmail! Pink slip! Chain letter! Eviction notice! Jury duty!
*Pfffft*. This movie doesn’t deserve Jim Carrey’s delightfully hammy performance.

Cindy Lou finds the Grinch and in panic, slips into package thing. Grinch tries leaving, but Max convinces him to save Cindy Lou. If they were trying to make Grinch like Kuzco, they would’ve made him saving Cindy Lou something he did willingly without reluctance. Because it took Max nudging him to do so, it comes off as hollow.
To cover up this good deed, Grinch wraps Cindy Lou in the wrapping paper and heads of. Because everyone in Whoville has to be an idiot, Cindy Lou’s father thinks she was getting into the Christmas spirit.

When Cindy Lou and her dad head back home, they see Betty (The mom) using all the lights from the house to try and out-decoration Martha May Whovier, who apparently has all the social credit in Whoville. This would be a lot funnier if it was relevant to the plot.

After the Grinch goes home to mount crumpit through the town dumpster, we get the song “Where are you Christmas”, which is sung by Cindy Lou. I get that Cindy Lou is a child, but she’s not really a good singer. Most of the song is telling us her mindset, which we already know about.

After that totally not pointless song, we cut back to the green man of the hour.
Grinch: Those Whos are hard to frazzle Max. But we did our worst, and that’s all that matters.
Sounds like a direct quote from Ron Howard when making this movie.

After some pointless scenes with Grinch, we cut to Cindy Lou asking people about the Grinch to find out why he’s so nasty. Since we cut to her goofing back and forth between people, I’ll just talk about the flashback scenes themselves and what happens.

[ Arthur - Flashback Sound Effect]

[ Mega Man: Powered Up Music - Ice Man Extended]
In this universe, babies come down from umbrella things called “Pumbersellas” and land on people’s porches. I guess the Stork union finally went on strike.
Random Who: Hey honey! Our baby’s here!…He looks just like your boss.
Okay, that was a good line.
Grinch’s pumbersella lands in the tree of these two old ladies’ house and they take him in. When in school, he starts simping after Martha May, which is seemingly mutual, and so does the kid version of Mayor Augustus May Who. Everyone makes fun of Grinch for having a beard at 8 years old, so after he wrecks a bunch of stuff to make Martha May a gift, he shaves his beard, but because he’s 8 years old, it doesn’t go well, and everyone mocks him for it, causing him to wreck the place.

I want you to keep in mind that by now, the original 2D animated version would’ve ended.

Anyway, Whobilation (Basically Mardi Gras but Christmas) is about to happen, and the abominations-
TAKE 2
…and the Whos are looking forward to it.
Mayor Augustus May Who: And now, the nominations, for the Who among us-
[ SpongeBob SquarePants Production Music - Superquick A]
He said it! He said among us!
10/10, best movie ever.

So Cindy Lou nominates The Grinch for Holiday Cheermeister, but Augustus May Who is all “Nah, he’s not poggers” but Cindy Lou is all “Um actually the Grinch needs it the most plus ratio”.

Back at Mount Crumpit, Grinch is annoyed at the Whobilation music, so he drowns out the noise with the power of loud noises and Jim Carrey’s incompetently amazing acting.
Cindy Lou then invites Grinch to be Cheermeister. He denies, but after Cindy Lou says there’s an award, Grinch wants to be a part of it, also because of Martha May being there.
One thing to not is that when Grinch is pulling the tablecloth from the table so he can wear it, the pots and pans were originally supposed to fall off, but because they didn’t, Jim Carrie improvised and knocked them over himself. Goes to show how dedicated the man was to his job.

After deciding to wear some yodeler’s overalls in an admittedly funny gag, it’s time for Whobilation. And how does Grinch get there? You do not want to know how the Grinch shows up.
…
Fine.
He flings from the Dumpit to Crumpit and falls face first between Martha May’s…uh…ah…
Nope, I have too much artistic integrity to finish that sentence.

[ Pokémon Sword & Shield - Team Yell Battle Music (HQ)]
After that…unique scene, Whobilation happens. After Grinch gets an electric razor during the Christmas pass-on, he gets PTSD flashbacks which aren’t helped by the Mayor proposing to Martha May and offering her a car. Because Grinch is Grinch, he scratches up the car.
Grinch: That’s what it’s about. That’s what it’s always been about! Gifts! Giftsgiftsgiftsgiftsgiftsgifts! You want to know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me. In your garbage. You see what I’m saying? In your garbage! I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump! And the avarice! The avarice never ends! “I want golf clubs! I want diamonds! I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored, and sell it to make glue!” I don’t wanna make waves, but this WHOLE CHRISTMAS SEASON is…STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!
Hey, you know how in the bad episodes of Family Guy, Quagmire is usually the voice of reason despite being a terrible person? Well, the situation here isn’t nearly half as insulting, but it’s still present.
Look, movie, I get your moral that Christmas isn’t about materialism, but having it come out of the Grinch’s mouth isn’t the way to do it.

After that, we get probably the most unironically funny scene in he movie, where the Grinch causes chaos all throughout Whoville. Jim Carrey’s delivery, everyone reacting to Grinch’s chaos, and the sheer pandemonium Grinch causes make for a pretty hilarious sequence.

In Grinch’s rampage, he destroys the big boi tree, an endeavor that becomes pointless since Whoville has a spare. This leads to the Grinch to FINALLY start his plan to steal Christmas.
Alright, in the Illumination adaptation (Which is actually halfway competent) The Grinch’s ploy to steal the holiday cheer from the Whos happened throughout the movie, but here, it doesn’t show up until the last third, making the rest of the movie just feel pointless.

After Grinch makes his plans to a remix of “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch” which actually sounds pretty good, we get the sequence of him stealing Christmas.
Nothing too notable happens, so I’ll say that Cindy Lou not knowing that the Grinch is disguising himself as Santa makes her look like a *Dolphin Noise*ing moron since she already saw him multiple times. It was better in Illumination’s version because Grinch at least had the beard.

Also we get a completely plot relevant scene of the mayor kissing Max’s butt for the Grinch’s diversion.
…
Anyway…

When dawn arises, as Grinch is about to rip the gifts over the edge of the cliff, the Whos wake up and realize their Christmas stuff is gone.
In the original version, the Whos didn’t really care that the gifts were stolen. They just went to the tree and sang. It was supposed to help the Grinch learn that Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Here, everyone keeps blaming each other for what Grinch did. There’s also no transition to them being upset to them being accepting. In Illumination’s Grinch, the Who’s were definitely bummed over not getting any gifts, but it worked because there was a smoother transition to them being sad to happy.

Back up on the cliff, Grinch realizes the Who’s not being sad and comes to the realization that Christmas means a little bit more. Now, this would be sweet, but the problem is that Grinch has been a goblin throughout the whole movie and basically ruined Whobilation, the moment doesn’t feel earned. In the original and Illumination version, he didn’t do much to actually ruin Christmas except try stealing the holiday, so there was more weight to the moment.

So yeah, you know the drill, Grinch gives the presents back, Martha May rejects the Mayor, and the Grinch carves the roast beast, ending the movie.

[ Spongebob Closing Theme Song 10 Minute Loop]
And that was the live action Grinch movie. Honestly, I know it’s not that great, but I got a lot of ironic enjoyment here. Like, it misses the point of the original book big time, Grinch’s arc isn’t really well handled, and Jim Carrey is unfit for the Grinch. But honestly, it’s incompetence kind of gives off a charm. Like, you can tell passion went into it, and while it lead to something sub-par, it’s nonetheless enjoyable in how bad it is. I’d watch this as a “So bad it’s good” Christmas movie.

Final Rating: -4.4/10 (A negative score indicates ironic enjoyment)