Review of The Twits

Weird, Wacky, Mediocre

This is one of the strangest movies I’ve watched all year, and that is saying something. It is based on the Roald Dahl children’s novel of the same name and is faithful to his style, which will confuse many people. It could be seen as a triumph or a detriment, since watching it requires Herculean suspension of disbelief.

The story does not center on its titular characters, the Twits. They are a husband and wife who are the vilest humans ever to end up in a kid’s book. They are rude, abrasive, disgusting, vindictive and self-centered. Their first act in the movie is to flood the town with “liquid hot dog meat” out of spite for the town condemning their homemade theme park, made from porta potties. And it only goes up or down from there, depending on how you want to view it.

The rest of the town is not much better. In usual Dahl fashion, most of the adults are incompetent, slightly malicious, and often idiotic. One random family in the town is showcased as falling for every ploy the Twits throw at them. The adults fall for it hook,line and sinker, while their child daughter is the only one who sees past the Twits machinations.Dahl likes to place kids in compromised situations, where they are gaslight by adults. He is telling us that kids usually understand what is going on, even if adults brush the obvious problems in the household aside.

It’s a dangerous world for children and our main character, but that dark edge is what makes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach fun and memorable. It tilts the world into that slightly dangerous unknown space children inhabit, where adults hold all the power, but not all the knowledge.

Our main characters are a young tween orphan named Beesha and Bubsy, her younger friend and semi-adoptive brother. The story is about how they handle and outsmart the antics of the Twits. The plot goes all over the place, from Mayoral elections, to saving Loompaland creatures from captivity, to someone’s butt exploding. While this sounds bombastic, it all makes sense according to its own internal logic. Roald Dahl’s plots have always been a look at the world through a broken mirror and this movie is no different. But it keeps you guessing. While the movie brings up many seemingly unconnected elements, everything comes together in a traditional way that will satisfy many viewers.

The greatest draw of this film is the loony and creative pranks the Twits and our main characters play. Everyone is getting revenge on one another, and it is a blast ( literally) to see what they come up with. Only some of these tricks affect the plot. Plenty of barf and fart jokes are thrown in for cheap laughs, but I was impressed with how they breathed new life into old gags.

I will say not much is overtly wrong about this movie, but what doesn’t work all the time is the animation and our main character. Don’t get me wrong. They are fine, but that’s about all I can say. The animation is purposely ugly, reminding me of the sketch book style of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. However, with that movie, I got used to its unorthodox style after a time. Here, I never settled into the offputting animation. I think it’s because of a mixture of the style not being pushed far enough and the lighting being off in multiple scenes. I also think that while the main character designs are all weird and distorted, most of the background characters are closer to normal, so it keeps taking you out of the experience. This could have worked well with Dahl’s off-kilter worlds, but here, it’s more something you have to keep clawing back from.

Beesha is also fine for a main character, but she offers little in the way of interest. Everything you think she’ll do, she does, and she ends where you expect. The internal journey of Beesha is more by the numbers, since the themes are about found family and realizing that just because the world is filled with Twits, doesn’t mean we have to become one. It is passable and a good message for children.

However, the supporting cast is a riot. The Twits are great love-to-hate them characters. They don’t reach the level of the best Disney villains, but I was always engaged when they are in the scene. The caretaker of the orphanage is also an effective inept character who is fun in every scene he bumbles into. And the Muggle-Wump beasts that the children steal from the Twists, thereby starting the conflict of the movie, are surprisingly heartfelt and good foils to Beesha and her closed-off nature.

The narrator gives it a fairy tale feel, but never adds much beyond that. And it does have musical numbers which don’t make your ears bleed, though no one will be singing them on their way to work.

This movie will not be for everyone as it leans into the weird and the disgusting. But if you’re a fan of Rald Dahl a la Matilda or the Witches or slightly altered versions of our world, you’ll love this. This might not be a perfect movie, but I was thoroughly amused the for the length of it.