Will You Feel Robbed After Watching The Grinch?

The Grinch is a great movie for kids but may leave you wanting more

Jenna Prelle, Staff Writer

Not many movies can claim that they have multiple films out in nearly the same name that aren’t sequels but rather different retellings of the same story. Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch is one of these rare instances. This film has three different retellings, ranging from the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! made in 1966 with traditional animation, to How the Grinch Stole Christmas made in 2000 with live-action, and finally to the subject of this review The Grinch made in 2018 using 3D animation. The Grinch has been key Christmas movie across multiple generations. Each story has variations from one another but all have the same basic plot of a disgruntled green who that hates Christmas and wishes to see its end for all of those in Whoville.

​The Grinch starts out by introducing the happy town of Whoville who all but one  truly come alive during the Christmas season, their collective favorite time of the year. Every corner of every street is covered in lights, wreaths, garland, and nearly every house sports a glittering Christmas tree in its halls.​

The exception for all these things is the grouchy Grinch who lives on the outside of town in a lonely mountain cave with just his loyal dog Max to keep him company. He feels extraordinarily lonely that he doesn’t feel the same merriment and companionship as the others. Though he has no plans on visiting the wretched town during this time and fixing that loneliness. Yet his plans were ruined, having ran out of all the food in the house that was supposed to last all season in order to avoid the treacherous town.

So forced by necessity the Grinch and Max made a dreaded shopping trip into the joyful town to stock up on much-needed food. Here is where the other main character is introduced, a little girl named Cindy Lou Who. While the Grinch is busy on his shopping trip it’s, Cindy’s goal is to send a last-minute letter to Santa Claus, but she couldn’t catch up to the mailman so her letter remained unsent. This letter is very important to her because she’s not asking for anything for herself but rather for help for her overworked single mother. These events lead her to come up with the idea to trap Santa on Christmas Eve in order to speak with him herself and make sure what she wants for her mom comes true. Meanwhile, the Grinch reminisced of his lonesome childhood in the town orphanage where they never celebrated Christmas, which led to him becoming enviously resentful of the other Whos happiness and companionship. In order to cope with this pain, he plots a devious plan to make the rest of Whoville feel just as sad about Christmas as he does. He plans to disguise himself as Santa and steal all of their decorations and presents, in order to get rid of the cursed day.

The Grinch comes up with his master plan inside his lair, working out the tiny details and creating many gadgets to help him complete his task. He even steals a decorative sleigh from an unexpected Who. Next, he needed reindeer, sadly he could only find a single one willing to do so, which he named Sam. Meanwhile, Cindy teams up with her friends to go through ensnaring the never before seen Santa Claus. Both plans come together at the last minute with everything coming through just the night before. With just hours to go, Sam leaves to rejoin with his family which leaves the Grinch having to settle for his dog Max to pull the sleigh. At last, the night is set into motion, the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who’s plans finally set out.

Based on my viewing of the new movie version of The Grinch I think it’s an ok film. It was entertaining and paced well enough that it didn’t really get boring at many points, and the humor was done well. The Grinch is certainly a good family film that I’d recommend to anyone who loves the franchise or just wants a new Christmas movie to watch. It followed along with the well-known plot of this classic story but made it its own enough that it didn’t just feel like the same movie all over again. In addition, the animation looked really nice and I liked the different artistic choices that this movie made.

I don’t think it’s the best of the Grinch films though, I personally favor the live-action Grinch but a lot of nostalgia plays into that because that was the version I watched when I was younger. The only thing I found sort of odd and out of place was some of the music choices within the movie. It could have also used a bit more story and interactions between the Who’s and the Grinch. Although I feel like the story didn’t really need retelling again, this movie feels like a bit of a cash grab trying to bank off of nostalgia off of the original and even the first remake. It’s a fine movie even with my misgivings, if you liked the original then you should give it a watch, it’s overall a good nostalgia. In all, those are my general thoughts on the new The Grinch movie.