Movie Review: 'Norm of the North'
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - As title character Norm himself puts it, who needs a polar bear with "too much care" and "not enough scare"?
Who, indeed.
Well, perhaps the target audience of youngsters without too much in the way of expectations in their backpacks.
The overall problem with Norm of the North is that he and his movie are below the norm.
Not that every theatrically released animated movie in this Golden Age of Animation is expected to be a masterpiece – and we've had more than our share of feature-length cartoons that qualify in recent years.
But we have come to expect that theatrically released 'toons rise well above the level established over the years on television.
And that's just not the case in this case because the PG-rated (for "mild humor and action") animated comedy, Norm of the North, lands significantly south of that mark.
Norm is a polar bear with an array of sparkling dance moves – the "Arctic shake," he calls it -- and three lemming buddies who spend a lot of time urinating.
Yes, you read that right.
Norm is not very good at hunting, which somewhat compromises his lifestyle in the Arctic, but he can talk to humans – a skill, a trait, a predilection that is bound to come in handy at some point.
When Norm and his lemming playmates hear that a greedy and unethical developer plans to do damage to the environment by building luxury condos – called "Green Houses" -- in their literal and metaphorical backyard and sell them to the wealthy one-percenters, they proceed to New York City, where Norm becomes the mascot for a corporation that has ties to his arctic homeland.
Rob Schneider gives voice to Norm but without much distinction, and the bland and underemployed supporting voice ensemble includes Heather Graham, Bill Nighy, James Corden, Ken Jeong, Colm Meaney, Loretta Devine, Gabriel Iglesias, and Zachary Gordon.
But neither Schneider's pedestrian line readings nor the connect-the-dots script he's working from manage to give Norm the likability he would need to put the youthful audience in his back pocket and take them with him.
That said, for families who simply cannot get enough animated attractions to attend over the course of the calendar year, this may nonetheless prove an acceptable alternative.
The animation background of debuting director Trevor Wall is in television. And Norm of the North was originally scheduled to be – and perhaps would have been better off remaining – a straight-to-DVD release.
Either way, whether by accident or design, the director and his screenwriters, Jack Donaldson and Derek Elliott, have adopted the rhythms and tone of various television offerings and let their lack of inspiration and ambition show.
That there are a message or three included in the lazy script of this kidflick is not only acceptable but preferable. But the ecological and political statements about climate change or financial inequity, for example, are awkwardly rather than smoothly integrated into the narrative and sometimes make the film seem to be talking down to their young audience.
As for the obvious attempt to turn the trio of lemmings into a viral sensation, the too-cute-by-half, giggly equivalent of the beloved minions in the Despicable Me flicks or the popular penguins in the Madagascar movies, it comes up considerably short of the intended mark.
And with what seems like barely enough plot to flesh the film out to feature length, Norm of the North often feels like a television episode stretched, turkish taffy-like, to movie-screen proportions.
So let's warm up 2 stars out of 4 for the lackadaisical animated arctic excursion, Norm of the North. Know that it's neither polarizing nor energizing, and feel free to indulge any interested children by taking them and not worrying about them getting their bearings.
