Once upon a time, the Kingdom of Malaria wasn’t such a bad place to live. But that was before a mysterious and ominous set of clouds shrouded their entire land in darkness, relegating this once proud realm of kindhearted farmers and merchants into the very bowels of hardship and poverty.

Scamper (Steve Buscemi), Igor (John Cusack) and Brain (Sean Hayes) in MGM's Igor

It was during those first few years of darkened stormy nights and days that evil became good business, scientists of all shapes and sizes coming up with inventions so malodorous and awful the rest of the world gladly paid every ransom demanded of them no matter how outlandish the sum all in order not to see these devilish devices unleashed upon them.

Even though the country flourished, not everyone was equal, Igor (John Cusack) and the rest of his hunchback kind relegated to the bottom dregs of this villainous society. The thing is, this particular servant doesn’t like to serve, and even though it’s against the law he’s going to invent a machine so despicable, so horrendous, so absolutely and monstrously E-V-I-L no one in Malaria will ever be able to take him for granted ever again.

The new animated comedy Igor is a cute enough concept, and even though it feels a bit like a warmed-over idea that Tim Burton probably had and abandon sometime back in his youth I admit to still finding just enough whimsy and wit to make the watching of it somewhat worthwhile. The bottom line is that I laughed more than I didn’t and spent the majority of the picture with a bemused smirk, and while I’m not about to say this is one of the better family films I’ve seen this year it did keep me entertained, make of that what you will.

Okay, so I admit the animation is a bit underwhelming. I also can’t claim that director Tony Leondis is able to keep the momentum flowing near as well as he probably should. Finally, the less I say about writer Chris McKenna’s script probably the better, the film so amazingly slight and lightweight it almost doesn’t even exist.

What the film is, though, is funny. Cusack is in fine vocal form as the lead, while Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Coolidge and (surprisingly) Jay Leno prove to be somewhat wonderful foils for the intrepidly Notre Dame-like hero. But it is the trio of Molly Shannon, Sean Hayes and especially Steve Buscemi who steal the show, each of them delivering their almost out of nowhere one-liners with such sarcastically snide and beautifully clueless glee I almost wanted to cheer. They hijack this movie and make it deliciously their own, and by the time it was over all I really wanted to talk about was them. 

Igor isn’t going to be remembered much longer than it takes the audience to walk outside the door, true, but while they're on the darkened side of it I can’t help but think they’re going to have a good time. While not quite as alive as I’d wish, this is still a movie with more electric creativity then a lot of other stuff I’ve seen this year, and as far as kids are concerned this is one experiment worth letting them conduct by themselves.

Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4) 

Additional Links:

-  Igor Theatrical Trailer