GNOME ALONE review

(Reviewed by Melody Werner)
Gnome Alone is a 2018 animated film that launched on Netflix. Directed listlessly by Peter Lepeniotis, and starring Becky G, Josh Peck, and George Lopez--nooooooooooo! Like Next Gen before it, Gnome Alone is a trashy family movie on a service where better alternatives exist... but at least it doesn't teach kids that violent sociopathy is admirable, so improvement?

The visuals are inoffensive, but don't have much weight. It's colorful and all, so maybe with a more fitting comedic style, it could've been better. This film has some slapstick, which is just kinda trashy because the characters move way too bouncy for that to work. It's like those live-action Smurfs movies; the animation just doesn't work for what they try to do with it. The character designs, especially those of the trogs, are lazy and kind of just dumb. They look like grapes with arms and faces. Voice acting can sometimes salvage an animated picture, but alas, the delivery is not funny enough to accomplish such a monumental task. I don't know how these garbo flicks keep roping in talented people like Lopez and David Cross. Gnome Alone doesn't deserve someone of that stature, or any stature for that matter. Then again, it is one of those marginally big budget cartoons where they put all of their budget into the cast, so I shouldn't be so surprised.

The narrative is as bargain basement as they come. All of the characters are boring or annoying. The protagonist, like that of Next Gen, is completely unlikable. The geek who's supposed to be her romantic interest came off as kind of creepy to me. The jokes are almost purely for a young audience, but there are better things kids can watch that are also on Netflix which families can enjoy because they have more to them. This movie feels like a worse version of The House with a Clock in Its Walls. Instead of having the roller coaster pacing of that film, Gnome Alone just feels rushed. The dialogue here is also very amateurish and dull.

Gnome Alone is not as awful as Next Gen, but not exactly good either. Not worth your time, just a standard forgettable, bland waste of talent we would've seen being named something like Igor or Happily N'Ever After a decade ago. Maybe one of these Netflix Original animated movies will be good someday. Until then, we'll have this 4.5/10 one to fill in the gap.

Lousy

Summary:
Drab visuals, underwhelming performances, slapdash story, lousy characters, and lethargic pacing would've consigned this to the bargain bin were it not on Netflix--where it serves a similar purpose of simply giving the illusion of there being more on the platform than there really is. And it may get away with that, if you don't mind watching something like this on a subscription. Which is fine, but I still wouldn't recommend it.