Igor

Igor



Ever felt unappreciated? Ever thought you were smarter than the ones dishing out the orders? Ever thought you were the most evil Genius in the world?
Igor suffers from all of the above.

Set in a quasi-Transylvanian village, the celebrities are not movie stars or sports heroes, but evil scientists intent on holding the world to ransom. Each year the top minds come together and compete to find who has the foulest imagination of the lot.
Each Scientist has their own Igor, a lisping, dim-witted, subservient slave who flips the appropriate switches when he's ordered to.

One Igor, called for the sake of simplicity, Igor (John Cusack), has ideas above his station and moonlights as a mad Scientist. Unknown to his master, Dr Glickenstein (John Cleese), Igor has successfully created two sentient beings from a dead rabbit and a brain in a jar.

When Glickenstein is killed in a lab explosion, Igor conceals the death and enters the competition in his master's stead. His entry? He plans to create life.

Unfortunately, as Igor is revelling in his success, his freshly made female Frankenstein is exhibiting some alarming behaviour; She's being nice.

With an ambitious scientist called Dr Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard) intent on stealing his creation, he must make his monster evil before the competition and keep her from being stolen.

The core idea behind this animated feature was, in its defense, original, but the story beats feel all to familiar. Igor is in love with the popular girl Heidi (Jennifer Coolidge) and tries to impress her by winning the competition, but the real girl of his dreams is under his nose all the time, Eva (Molly Shannon). Fair enough, his ideal girl does happen to be the monster he created, but you can't help feeling you've seen it all before.

The animation isn't all that impressive either. It's a combination of Tim Burton's 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'Monster's Inc'. The gloomy atmosphere's aren't done justice by the glossy graphics and detract from the story.

The one stroke of genius in this film is all too short lived. It comes in the form of Scamper (Steve Buscemi) a suicidal Rabbit who also happens to be completely indestructible. The best jokes come from his futile attempts at killing himself; Blowing his brains out, just for them to grow back.

Igor never really escapes the Tesco bargain basket level, but at least he tried.

Verdict 6/10
Never really lives up to its potential.