Animated fable about a cliché hunchbacked evil scientist's assistant (John Cusack) who aspires to become a scientist himself, much to the displeasure of the rest of the evil science community.

"Igor" is the first animated feature film produced by Exodus Film Group and the French CGI animation studio, Sparx*. Work was split between the studio's Paris and Vietnam facilities, and despite a large array of celebrity voices, the film ended up becoming rather obscure. While not a smashing success, the film did earn a small profit. (This would also likely be the last film from Sparx*, as they were acquired by Virtuos shortly after.)

Rotten Tomatoes writes, "With an animation style that apes Tim Burton, and a slew of cultural references that aren't clear enough to reach the crowds, Igor's patched together antics make it hard to see who the film is trying to please." This sums it up very nicely. The animation is clearly Burton-inspired (the king looks an awful lot like Halloween's mayor),and much of it was hit and miss. Fun, yes, but never a home run. Trying to pinpoint where it went wrong is difficult, though... something just feels off.

In this animated comedy adventure, John Cusack plays the titular character, a sweet, intelligent lab assistant to an evil mad scientist who creates life, much to the chagrin of the mad-scientist community, in the, uh, person of a giantess named Eve. Although it's completely computer animated, the movie recalls such stop-motion-animation fare as The Nightmare before Christmas and the recent Coraline, not to mention the old Universal monster classics, whose old clichés get tweaked a few times.

Igor (it's both his name and his profession) works for Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese),who's desperately trying to make an evil invention to enter into the Evil Scientists Fair. See, King Malbert (Jay Leno) believes that the town can prosper only through these evil inventions, what with the farming community destroyed by climate change. Meanwhile, Igor - our Igor - is much smarter than he lets on, as Igors are stereotypically supposed to be dumb, slurring oafs good only for fetching things and pulling switches. Igor, in fact, has already made two inventions - a snide, suicidal-yet-immortal rabbit (Steve Buscemi),and a dumb robot with a brain (Sean Hayes).

Circumstances lead Igor to try to make his own evil entry - the creation of life itself, something the real evil scientists have never been able to accomplish. The result: Eva, a giant, giant, giantess who's... well, not evil. This is because her Evil Bone must be activated, see; to do so, Igor even takes her to get brainwashed, but instead of horror images Eva somehow watches an episode of Inside the Actor's Studio with James Lipton, so when she emerges she's a struggling actress who's on her way to a big audition.

Personally, I found this movie a whole lot of fun, probably because a) I love the old monster movies that are just skewered here and b) I love animated movies, too. John Cusack, one of my all-time favorites (I've seen more than thirty of his films) is great as the not-quite-evil lab assistant, and the animation is top notch, with wonderfully realized backgrounds that recall those old monster movies quite well. Steve Buscemi is an absolute hoot as Scamper, easily stealing every scene he's in - he gets all the great lines, but it's Buscemi's comic timing that make them come alive. So to speak. There's also a contextually perfect soundtrack, including a bouncy tune by Louis Prima called "The Bigger the Figure." Molly Shannon, who voices Eva, also delivers a fun, appealing performance.

There will be some who love Igor, and some who don't. I liked it, I have seen better animated films, but I have seen worse as well. The plot, despite a very intriguing concept, is rather formulaic and the film drags at times, but a lot compensates for any misgivings. There may be some who'd think Igor is too dark, I can understand, but I happened to like the dark tone the film sometimes had, it reminded me a little bit of the Gothic charm you'd find in a Tim Burton film. The animation is absolutely great, very bold and colourful while keeping to Igor's overall atmosphere, and the characters are quirky with an endearing protagonist and Scamper is very funny and devious. I also liked the ghoulish jokes and gags, and the film is smartly written generally. The vocal cast I can't fault either, John Cusack and John Cleese are both very likable, Molly Shannon like her character is very sweet-natured and Jennifer Coolidge's Heidi is hilarious, but Steve Buscemi as Scamper steals the show. Overall, a good film, not a great one but I don't consider it bad either. 7/10 Bethany Cox