{"id":23098,"date":"2016-11-24T00:32:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T05:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=23098"},"modified":"2016-11-24T02:21:01","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T07:21:01","slug":"norm-of-the-north-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/24\/norm-of-the-north-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Norm of the North (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"norm-of-the-north\"<\/a>So Norm is a polar bear who lives in the arctic and doesn\u2019t really know how to hunt. But that\u2019s okay because he can speak to humans, for some reason. Why? It\u2019s never explained, but Norm goes back to when he was a child and explains to the audience that everyone in his family can communicate with humans, including his grandpa. Just his luck, he and his friend Socrates, who is an intelligent bird (because he wears glasses ya see), realize that human tourists are coming to the arctic. Are you still with me? So in order to appease the humans, Norm willingly enlists the helps of his friends to perform for the hapless tourists. Which works too well because he and Socrates find out that the humans are turning the arctic in to a tourist destination. So Norm made the arctic a tourist destination and now hates that it\u2019s becoming a tourist destination. Understand?<\/p>\n

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Now, now, you\u2019re probably saying that \u201cNorm of the North\u201d has too much plot for a movie that goes nowhere. And you\u2019d be right. When Norm can stop twerking and dancing, he hides out in the hut of Vera, one of the developers who is in the Arctic to scout locations and try to catch footage of the animals to attract potential home owners. Her daughter is kind of on board with the project but doesn\u2019t quite get the plan to build property in the snowy wilderness, or something. After she ships her hut back home, Norm ends up in the city. Being able to convince everyone he\u2019s a man in a polar bear suit, he and his group of lemmings pals try to confront the evil land developer and keep him from making the arctic in to a suburban wasteland. There are also shots of lemmings urinating in to an office aquarium, which I assume is intended for comedy.<\/p>\n

Just when you think the movie isn\u2019t done with its narrative, there\u2019s also a revelation about Norm\u2019s missing grandfather, and a sub-plot involving protagonist Vera\u2019s daughter entering a new school. She\u2019s also smart because she wears glasses, get it? \u201cNorm of the North\u201d covers all the bases for an animated movie, doing everything in its power to catch on pop culture wise. Character Norm even has his own sidekicks that are basically poor man\u2019s Minions; let\u2019s face it, they\u2019re poor man\u2019s whatever those things were in \u201cThe Lorax.\u201d They\u2019re literally lemmings, and they don\u2019t do much except squeak and squeal and help Norm dance a lot. Forget the fact Norm can speak to humans, we have to see as many shots of Norm dancing to keep the kids in the audience from dozing off.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the wildly inconsistent and very bottom of the barrel animation, which often makes \u201cNorm of the North\u201d feel like one of those knock off animated films you\u2019d find in a Wal-Mart. You could probably blame Rob Schneider for \u201cNorm of the North\u201d being so terrible, but Norm isn\u2019t given enough of a personality to figure out if Schneider is why the movie stinks. The writers take personality traits from Shrek, Alex from \u201cMadagascar,\u201d Diego from \u201cIce Age,\u201d and even Mumble from \u201cHappy Feet.\u201d The titular character is never given a unique persona or quirks of his own, so in the end he comes off like pastiche of popular characters that can potentially sell toys, rather than a goofy inadvertent hero of nature. I\u2019d suggest \u201cNorm of the North\u201d for younger audiences, but I think after thirty minutes even they will eventually wander off in boredom to look for something else to do.<\/p>\n