Little green men have been a cinematic staple since the first alien invaders set tentative toes onto our planet, but few have proved as tenacious as Dr. Seuss's Grinch. The cranky tempered furball is now coming back to the big screen thanks to a fresh adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! lined up by Universal and animation house Illumination Entertainment.
Is it a reboot? Not really. More an animated return to Whoville, driven by Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri. He's the man behind The Lorax and Horton Hears a Who, so don't expect the **Grinch **adaptation to deviate too far from the youngster-pleasing approach of those two. Mind you, bearing in mind the Grinch's unique outlook on life, there should be more in this one for the misanthropic munchkins out there.
Ron Howard's 2000 film, in which Jim Carrey's yule-dissing grinch scarred a generation of children (and adults) for life, was a mixed bag with a groundbreaking prosthetics and a solid central performance masking an erratic storyline. It'll be interesting to see how successful Meledandri and his director, former Disney animator Pete Candeland, are in corralling the anarchic spirit of Dr. Seuss into a three-act structure this time out.