Review: 'Igor' Movie Experiment Gone Wrong

'Igor' (PG)(out of four)

There must be a formula written somewhere for how full-length animated feature films are supposed to be constructed. The main character must be hapless and downtrodden, and should always overcome the odds to reach his lofty goal. Plus, his sidekicks should be uncontrollably annoying.

A nd, of course, there needs to be a happy ending.

"Igor" takes this recipe and tries to stitch it together with some artful animation, recognizable named voice talent (Jay Leno, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon) and the chance that releasing it in the Halloween season will give it a ghost of a chance.

The film goes out on a limb with its odd plot about a hunchback named Igor (voiced by John Cusack), who is employed (as all Igors are) by a mad scientist. Igor is at the service of the evil Dr. Glickenstein. But Glickenstein is a quack and his inventions never quite reach their pinnacle. Of course, Igor knows how to make the failures work, but since he's just Igor, who will listen to him? When Glickenstein drops dead, it's Igor's chance to try one experiment that no one has ever been able to master: creating life.

The focal point of the town of Malaria, where Igors and their scientists live, is a yearly evil science fair with everyone vying for the top prize: To become known as the greatest evil scientist in all the land.

Igor believes this will be his ticket to show the Malarian world that not only can he be smarter than an evil scientist, but that all Igors should be respected. (The recurring theme of acceptance runs rampant here).

In typical formulaic fashion there's a bad guy who tries to undermine Igor's attempt at greatness. Dr. Schadenfreude, a dastardly no good who has won the evil science fair for more than a decade by stealing other scientists' inventions, discovers Igor's plan of creating a female Frankenstein and makes every attempt to snatch the creature away from the hunchback.

Yes, the plot may sound complicated, but it's really not. The question here isn't if kids will be able to follow the chain of events, but if they will care. Kids under 10 at a recent screening only belly laughed at Igor's two silly sidekicks: A brain in a jar named Brain who thinks his name is Brian -- he's a bit of a dimwit; and a suicidal bunny named Scamper whose attempts at dying fail because of his immortal soul.

"Igor" is as odd as its characters. With adult cartoon humor of movies like "Roger Rabbit" (the evil creature watches James Lipton in an episode of "Inside the Actors Studio" during a brainwashing session) and the darkness of the film a la Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas," one push of the switch a little more forward and this film might have had a chance at capturing the Harry Potter set.

Instead it aims at the "Toy Story" crowd, but doesn't succeed. The blue haze that's ever present throughout the film casts a sleepy time aura over the movie theater and for the toddler set who won't be lulled into naptime during the first 30 minutes of the film, they'll grow fidgety with the gaps in pratfalls.

The problem with "Igor" is it is appears concocted by its own mad scientist, who was using a movie potion he thought might work: a dash of "Shrek," a pinch of "Potter," a bit of "Bugs Bunny."

But there's one ingredient missing. For all of "Igor's" attempts at originality, it really is just a mix of a lot of different movies we've seen before.