Horrid Henry: The Movie (2011) Reviews

• Take the Henry out of the title..you have the movie..

  FlashCallahan2011-12-14

  When Henry fails yet again to hand in his homework for the umpteenth time, he has no idea that this will set off a chain of events which will see him forming an unlikely alliance with Moody Margaret, the infuriating girl next door, and his irritating little brother Perfect Peter. Together, they outwit corrupt School Inspectors and toppling an evil Headmaster, winning a talent contest and facing his ultimate nemesis with no way out - all because he is trying to save the very school which he has always professed to hate! Take most of Britains talent, give them an awful script and some cringe inducing acts to do, and you have this poor excuse of a movie. My daughter loves the animated series, but she really got fed up after the second act. It's a travesty to see such talent look so awkward with the little that they are given. And I though E. Grant was hamming it up in Hudson Hawk! He really takes the biscuit in this. The best thing about this is Huston, giving it her all in such a mess.

• a waste of the talent as its disposal

  lamagia_uk2011-08-05

  I took my 8 and 6 year old children. My 8 year old is usually quite forgiving of a bad film if she has popcorn. We watch and enjoy a lot of children's films - this was the worst for a long time, since Space Chimps probably, and made worse by that it could have been so much better with a little craft to its direction. And from a director with so much experience as an Editor, it was really badly edited. My 6 year old thought it was OK, but there lies the problem - the film is obviously aimed, in its semi-high-school American 'teen rock' music pretensions, at a much older audience. A porous plot, even to an 8 year old, and the embarrassing potential of the cast falls extremely flat. Mathew Horne seems only to have two expressions in his repertoire and is in extreme danger of having a bit part comedy career fade fast. Anjelica Huston's Scottish accent was insulting and embarrassing - like a sheltered American impersonating Mrs Doubtfire. Horrid Henry clean cut and Americanised, really wasn't very menacing at all. I was surprised we were spared the sentimental 'son, I got it all wrong but I will always love you' ending: it would have completed the American airbrushing.

• Not quite horrid, but a real disappointment

  TheLittleSongbird2011-08-25

  I love the books and the TV series, and although I was very dubious of seeing Horrid Henry:The Movie, especially after hearing it had 3D and Dick and Dom, part of me was eager to see it. So I did, expecting an entertaining enough movie on its own terms. What I got was a real disappointment. It wasn't horrid, but overall it was the weakest films I've seen so far this year and one of the most disappointing. The only good things for me were Theo Stevenson's spirited performance and the jaunty soundtrack. Firstly I didn't like how the film looked. It was certainly colourful but also in a sense over-saturated. Horrid Henry:The Movie was quite badly edited as well, constantly it felt very awkward and rushed. The costumes are also rather cartoony in style. I wasn't happy that Horrid Henry:The Movie would have 3D effects, I frankly didn't think it needed it, and after seeing I still wasn't happy. I still think they were unnecessary, and the lack of clarity and sharpness in the effects themselves cheapened the film for me. The story was another minus, overall I found it very rushed and predictable with little of the charm and simplicity that the books and TV series had. The only thing I liked about the story was the lack of the over-sentimental(or it can be) "I love you son" sort of ending. The writing was messy, the dialogue is often weak and the laughs feel forced. When I saw it the closest the audience came to laughing were a couple of barely audible giggles. Kids either had a sort of amused expression or a sense they weren't sure whether they were supposed to laugh but a lot of adults looked as though they wished they had a triple detention instead. The cast are talented, but at least to me the film just seemed like an excuse to bring in as many British or TV personalities as possible. Many of them try hard and overdo it, Richard E.Grant definitely applies here, or are wasted, Jo Brand, or don't try, Matthew Horne. I know they deliberately exaggerated Miss Lovely's character, or so it seemed, but the characterisation was a little too over-eager and sugary for my tastes. Anjelica Huston fares better, she is a wonderful actress and while she overdoes the accent she clearly seems to be enjoying herself. If I had to ask myself what was the most painful bit about this movie? I'd say aside from the poor writing and the unnecessary 3D, it has to be the abysmally unfunny appearance of Dick and Dom. All in all, a real disappointment. 3/10 Bethany Cox

• I Hate Saying This About Movies

  jami4292011-08-29

  England's very first Kids 3D film turned out to be Horrid Henry The Movie. The Horrid Henry books became a big success in the UK alone. They created an animated series in 2006 and now they have created a movie in 2011. I am a fan of the Horrid Henry books. I also thought the series wasn't too bad either. Then when the film came out I thought it would be good to go and see it. The characters looked great. But the way the actors performed them was very disappointing. I would call this bad acting. The way they performed each role was very poor. Each one did look like the characters in the books and series, but most of them didn't feel like it was the characters you know in the books. The actual plot was poor as well. It felt like a plot that you would see in an episode of the cartoon series. They could have thought of something much better than what they chose. I would say that there was one actor in this that did fit the part of her character. That person is Anjelica Huston who played the part of Miss Battleaxe. She really did play the part of Miss Battleaxe really well. She was only on for a few scenes and I think she needed to be in this film a bit longer than she was. I would not say this is a family film. I would say this is just for kids younger than 8. It might be more entertaining for them than it is for anyone older. It was very disappointing for me; it was actually an insult to the books. I hate saying stuff like that about movies, but I'm afraid I had to say it. Written By Jamie Foster

• In one word this movie is: Terrible. (I'm not using a horrid pun)

  TheSeaLion2014-06-20

  There are three kinds of movies that I really can't stand. One is a movie that is style over substance with no attempt made at adding substance, two is a movie that is completely pretentious, and three are children's movies that think children are completely stupid so they don't try. In case you haven't guessed, "Horrid Henry: The Movie" fits in with the third category. "Horrid Henry" is a move that does not know what it's about and relies on all sorts of things to keep the audience's attention. The annoying thing about "Horrid Henry" is that the movie has a million different things going on in it, and still almost nothing happens within the whole movie. the principal of a private school (Richard E. Grant) bribes two school inspectors (Metin and Timur Ahmet) to purposely fail a public school in order to get the student's parents to have to pay to send their kids to the private school. This has happened to several schools already and now the school that Henry goes to is the next domino to fall. Henry and a group of other students, including his arch nemesis Moody Margret (Scarlett Stitt) and his brother Perfect Peter (Ross Marron) join forces to save the school. The movie loses focus on what it is trying to do about halfway through the movie when Henry is sent to a girl's school by his rich aunt (Helen Lederer) because she thinks he's a girl. There, he runs into Moody Margaret, and this part is supposed to be used to show they hate the girls school and decide to join forces together to save their school so they don't have to go to the girl's school. This part of the movie goes on for at least fifteen minutes, serves very little purpose to the movie other than to add some terrible attempts at comedy and lengthen the movie with something that could be done in five minutes. The character of Henry (Theo Stevenson) is given two side-stories that tie into the movie, yet don't lead anywhere. Henry says he wants to be a musical sensation, but halfway through the movie that is dropped. Then, he has an arc where he learned how to spell 'homework' and it looks like he's taking school seriously now, but then it turns out he isn't. While he and his team do manage to save the school from closing, everything is back to the way it was at the beginning of the film other than the principal of the other school and the inspectors are arrested. No characters change and there is no lingering effects from the event. The film throws so many visuals at you that it becomes headache-inducing and even starts to make the movie slip towards that style over substance junk that I hate so much. There are a number of graphics and visual effects in the movie that make no sense and add nothing to the plot, like when Margaret throws a water balloon at Henry, there is a random sequence of him dodging the balloon using random graphics, but it adds nothing to the story. With a story that goes every which way without any real reason for it, dumb graphic effects, an unlikable protagonist, and a mess of a script, "Horrid Henry" The Movie" is not only a terrible movie, it is intelligence insulting and just leaves you feeling tired and depressed after watching it. With so little a plot to follow and zero pacing to the story, this 93 minute piece of garbage feels like it's two and a half hours long.