Norm of the North (2016)

(In French, Video On-Demand, January 2020) For years, rumours and anguished reports of Norm of the North’s abysmal quality were broadcast to the void. I ignored them, and finally saw what it was about. The rumours are right. Norm of the North, while not entirely unwatchable, is what happens when a film tries to ape everything that worked in other animated movies without having quite the skills, budget, wit or conviction to carry it off. The first problem is visual, and it doesn’t take a long time to realize that this won’t be a top-quality production. But even by the standards of B-grade animation movies, Norm of the North is terrible: the creature designs are grotesque, the animation has little fluidity, the staging is awkward and the set design is both blocky and without texture – director Trevor Wall doesn’t cover himself in glory here. It was released in 2016 but feels as if it’s from 2006. But even if you manage to make your way beyond what is displayed on the screen, the script is perhaps even worse. Characters are introduced and abruptly disappear from the plot, while other characters appear in the third act with nary a bit of foreshadowing. The humour is toilet grade, and usually recycled from much better movies. (The Happy Feet series and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 should probably ask for a portion of the gross considering how much they contributed to the plot and character design.) Even things that should work without a hitch, such as using pop songs for montages, are more baffling than effective: the songs instantly date the film and are used without any kind of self-awareness beyond “dance, kids, dance!” Now, to be entirely fair, it is possible to watch Norm of the North and not ask too many questions… but if kids can do this, adults are going to have a much harder time doing so, and that may be Norm of the North’s single biggest failing: being barely palatable to the kids while being near-intolerable to the adults.