Movie Review: Igor

By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Movie Critic

2-1/2 stars

"Igor" is about a misunderstood hunchback and an aspiring actress, and it's easy to see why it got made in the first place: Most of the men who run Hollywood envision their world in roughly the same terms.

Screenwriter Chris McKenna - whose chief credit is the Fox series "American Dad!" - brings a classic supporting horror-movie player center stage, the way the "Shrek" movies subverted and showcased the ogre archetype. In the Kingdom of Malaria, Igors are sent to Igor School for a "Yes Masters' Degree" (I like that bit), destined for a servile, lisping, foot-dragging existence in the employ of the country's many evil scientists.

The Igor "Igor" concerns itself with is voiced by John Cusack. His venal boss, Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese), expires while tinkering with his invention for the annual Evil Science Fair, leaving Igor to freely experiment with his own creation: a destructive force of mayhem, female division, voiced by Molly Shannon. She recalls Elsa Lancaster in "The Bride of Frankenstein," without the electro-fro.

The gag here is that "Eva" isn't evil in the least. Subjected to a "Clockwork Orange"-style brainwashing process, she is mistakenly shown a James Lipton "Inside the Actors Studio" program and comes out thinking she's an actress herself, obsessed with scene study and updating her "sense-memory journal." If this sounds rather arch, well, a lot of "Igor" certainly is that. You'll surely never see, or hear, a more menacing rendition of the "Annie" anthem "Tomorrow" than the one sung by the newly evil-ized Eva as she batters the competition at the climactic Evil Science Fair.

I don't like that scene much: It's just off-putting. More fun for me, as well as for my preteen son John and his pal Liam, is the running gag with Igor's associate, the suicidal rabbit Scamper. With an uneven and overstuffed script you appreciate the corner-of-the-mouth comments as delivered by Steve Buscemi. The boys' favorite bit was one of the simplest: "May I suggest that you look behind you!?!" Scamper thunders, after Eva's gone missing. Igor looks. Nothing there. "It was just a suggestion," he says.

The visual universe of "Igor" is pretty grim, full of rusty maroon tones and belching smoke and pop decadence. Director Tony Leondis and his chief art director, Olivier Besson, are trying to show us there's more than one way to evoke moods and textures made famous by Tim Burton. Even with various script doctors, "Igor" isn't particularly funny, and having all those Louis Prima tunes on the soundtrack seems completely at odds with composer Patrick Doyle's moody, sardonic orchestral commentary. But my kid went with it, and I had a fairly good time with it, as I waited patiently for the reappearance of a marble-mouthed peasant tart, Mittel-European division, voiced by Jennifer Coolidge. Half the time her line readings are hilarious, and it's impossible to know, in any rational sense, why. That's my kind of voice artist.

MPAA rating: PG (for some thematic elements, scary images, action and mild language).

Running time: 1:26.

Starring the voices of: John Cusack (Igor); Steve Buscemi (Scamper); John Cleese (Dr. Glickenstein); Jennifer Coolidge (Jaclyn/Heidi); Arsenio Hall (Carl Cristall); Sean Hayes (Brain); Eddie Izzard (Dr. Schadenfreude); Jay Leno (King Malbert); Molly Shannon (Eva).

Directed by Tony Leondis; written by Chris McKenna, additional material by Leondis, John Hoffman and Dimitri Toscas; art directed by Olivier Besson; animation supervised by Christele Jolens and Yoshimichi Tamura; edited by Herve Schneid; music by Patrick Doyle; produced by John D. Eraklis and Max Howard. An MGM release.