Board book, hard cover, or soft — chances are, at some point in your life, you encountered author Crockett Johnson’s children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon. A tale of wonder, the brief adventure features a toddler/little kid-aged boy in a blue onesie creating an entire world from nothing more than his imagination and purple crayon. First published in 1955, Johnson’s book has found its way into countless homes worldwide, perhaps inspiring generations of artists to allow their imaginations to take them wherever they need to go. Earlier this year, under the director of Carlos Saldanha (Rio; Ice Age: The Meltdown), Harold leapt off the page and into the real world in a mixed medium family adventure starring Zackary Levi (Chuck) as the titular boy all grown up. Perhaps because of the approach by co-writers David Guion (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb) and Michael Handelman (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb), the marketing for the film leaned hard on the fish-out-of-water aspects that made even this reviewer wonder why this story wasn’t just full-on animation. Now, with Harold and the Purple Crayon on home video, audiences can discover that there’s more going on than the adolescent hijinks that’ve become too much of a staple of Levi’s filmography.
L-R: Lil Rel Howery as Moose and Zachary Levi as Harold in Columbia Pictures HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures. © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Harold’s (Levi) world is one of adventure and excitement every day. Joined by best friends Moose and Porcupine (Lil Rel Howery and Tanya Reynolds, respectively), Harold goes and does whatever he wants, aided by his imagination-powered purple crayon. But when the narrator he’s known all his life (voiced by Alfred Molina) stops talking, Harold journeys into the real world to find him. While dealing with the challenges that come from unexpected consequences of crossing over, he makes some new friends and a surprising enemy. If he’s going to complete his mission and get home, Harold must also discover from where the power of the crayon derives in order to save the day.
Though this is a home release review, we’re going to keep a few things to ourselves in order to preserve some surprises in the film. That said, if Columbia Pictures included it in the trailer, it’s fair game to explore.
L-R: Director Carlos Saldanha and actor Benjamin Bottani on the set of Columbia Pictures HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON. Photo Credit: Hopper Stone. ©2024 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
First things first, for the purposes of this review, I requested that my eldest join me for the screening — a request he unnaturally jumped at. This child, who does not do well with live action storytelling, was locked in, even muttering “no, no, no,” and “don’t do that” during several scenes of crisis for Harold. For a child who hasn’t gotten past the Tony Stark surgery scene in Iron Man (2008) and was bored thoroughly by The Princess Bride (1987), that he remained not only entertained by the film, but so connected as to react, is a credit to Saldanha and cannot be disregarded. Harold really isn’t designed for adult audiences (we’ll get to that in a moment) and really just needs to support its target: young audience members. To that, the film does its job and does so well.
L-R: Zachary Levi as Harold and Benjamin Bottani as Mel in Columbia Pictures HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures. © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Another aspect of note comes from the script by Guion and Handelman which use the absence of the narrator as the catalyst for Harold’s adventure. The real world is fraught with dangers, but Harold doesn’t look before leaping — an aspect that’s made into a joke after Harold helps destroy a Kmart-style store — making him an apt surrogate for a story about loss, growing up, and the imagination as a tool for perseverance. The family Harold meets, Terry and her son Mel (Zooey Deschanel and Benjamin Bottani, respectively), lost their husband/father; “Library Gary” (Jemaine Clement) continually loses an audience for his book (one of a series of collected rejections that undermine his confidence, resulting in him being creepy); and Harold’s lost his narrator. Through the script, Harold’s imagination via the crayon enables him to do everything from replace a flat tire, create a plane for skywriting, and a key to free himself from chains, but it can’t replace anything that’s actually lost. The lesson, therefore, deep within the script for young audiences, is that loss happens, but we shouldn’t allow that to diminish us in the process. If we lose the spark of creativity, the essence of our humanity, then it may as well have been a second death. I can’t help but wonder if my child picked up on any of this or if he was too worried about what would happen to the broken piece of the purple crayon that Harold hands over to consider it. With recent health emergencies and then the hurricane that swept through North Carolina impacting folks his parents know, a certain amount of pathos has hovered around the kid, but will any of the life-or-death stuff in the story really hit him? Honestly, I don’t think so. The film is too bright, too positive, and too light — even Gary, for all the scariness in the trailer, is a watered-down villain who’s more diluted adult than threat. Which is to say that the script is really good at entertaining my son and attempting some complexity, but it doesn’t seem to want to dig anymore more deeply than a board book of the original tale does at bedtime.
Director Carlos Saldanha on the set of Columbia Pictures HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON. Photo Credit: Hopper Stone. ©2024 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
In terms of the home release, your options are digital, DVD, and Blu-ray, with all the below listed features available on all three formats. None of them are particularly lengthy or offer a look into the filmmaking process. Even Garfield (2024) offered some behind-the-scenes materials on the making of that animated family film and that one is far less entertaining than this. You can learn how to draw the three characters in the style of Johnson’s book in a five-minute featurette lead by Head of Animation Pascal Campion (Paw of Fury: The Legend of Hank), join in on a brief 93-second sing along, partake in a two-minute marketing video of film clips with the cast telling you how to maintain your imagination, and explore a six-minute collection of deleted and extended scenes. The bonus features are a real missed opportunity to inspire reading and artistry in the audience rather than a few puff materials to pad the home release.
L-R: Lil Rel Howery as Moose, Zachary Levi as Harold, Benjamin Bottani as Mel, and Tanya Reynolds as Porcupine in Columbia Pictures HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures. © 2024 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Mileage is absolutely going to vary on this one. Levi gives a performance we’ve seen several times already between Chuck Bartowski (Chuck) and Shazam (Shazam!; Shazam! Fury of the Gods), which isn’t necessarily bad for the target audience, but it’s not a stretch either. Howry (Get Out; Vacation Friends) is fun as Moose, though the jokes are repetitive, and Deschanel (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Elf) doesn’t seem as engaged with things as the cast around her (possible a side effect of being the sole “adult” in the narrative). The one that brightens up any scene they’re in is Reynolds (Emma.; Sex Education), whose physical performance and commitment bring about infectious laughter, a necessity considering the places the script seeks to go, even if it doesn’t go as deep as it could go in an effort to maintain its levity.
But again, while the film is, ultimately, fine, that its target enjoyed it enough to want to revisit it is what matters. Personally, I’d rather go back to the source.
Harold and the Purple Crayon Special Features:
- How to draw Harold, Porcupine & Moose (5:43)
- “Colors” Sing Along (1:33)
- How Do You Spell Imagination? (1:54)
- Deleted & Extended Scenes
Available on digital August 27th, 2024.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD October 8th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Columbia Pictures Harold and the Purple Crayon website.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
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