Alexander and the terrible horrible no good very bad day review

Somewhat Spoilers

   Alexander (no way am I typing out that full title throughout this review) is based on the thirty-two page children's book about a boy named Alexander who has a terrible, horrible no good very bad day. The book itself focuses solely on Alexander as he goes through his day where as the eighty-two minute movie focuses more on his family then it does on the title character himself.

   Now I am not going to try and compare the book to the movie and before you say "It's a book adaptation they can change things as long as they keep to the core." Which I agree a book adaptation should not be ball-and-chained to the original source material if it would be better for the movie to diverge that's where I get to the good parts of the film.

  First let's get to the bad. This is a very cheesy and kind of hooky film, many of the scenes are very cookie-cutter and very cringe-worthy, the most is when they repeat the mantra (terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day) which they did in the book but actually saying it out loud makes it seem very cringe-worthy. The movie is also rushed through completely as most of the problems are fixed by the time the second act happens so nothing really happens by the time the third act comes around.

  Another bad part of the film is the character of Alexander our title character, now I don't blame the child actor (Ed Oxenbould) for this because he actually does a decent job with what he's given but the character of Alexander is so one-note and flat you can basically perform a tap-dance routine on him. The thing is Alexander not the main character of the movie the rest of his family is, the bad day the book is about is rushed through in the first five minutes and it's more about his family experiencing a bad day understanding what he goes through. Now I would be fine with this premise if the name of the film was Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.

  The rest of  Alexander's family his brother Anthony, his sister Emily, and his mom and dad are also very one note and by the end of it kind of forgettable. Now that doesn't mean the performances are bad much of the acting in this movie is very good from his siblings and from Jennifer Garner and Steve Carrell as his parents who are both always fun.

  On that note lets get to the good, I do think the film does or at least tries to capture the message of the book- everyone has a bad day. So you can tell the filmmakers had some passion for this story which is good for me. I don't think it does it well but it still does it and again the performance are good and overall the movie is genuinely funny with some actually very funny scenes.

   They also do a new pet peeve of mine in comedy movies the CGI animals which always makes me cringe because I think it would be cheaper and cooler to get real animals instead of getting fake ones.

  The movie as a whole wasn't as bad as I was expecting actually and did have a lot of redeeming qualities.

I give this movie a 6.5/10~ Cheesy, hook and flat with pet peeves but still good performances, tries with some passion and is genuinely funny.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nessaroseboq

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camille.montano.5209