Gnomeo & Juliet

Tonight we sat down and watched Gnomeo and Juliet, which I'd downloaded last night from iTunes, which was very convenient if you prefer waiting eight hours for a file to be transferred to your computer, as opposed to walking to the shops and buying the DVD. Oh, I suppose the internet is teaching us all about delayed gratification.

Gnomeo and Juliet was produced by Elton John and his husband, and perhaps because of that they managed to get a ridiculously overqualified voice cast - half the fun of the film is trying to figure out if Ozzy Osbourne really is a lawn deer, and who Tybalt is being played by. (My favourite baldie-headed hard man, as it turns out.)

The animation is gorgeous; not quite as glossy as anything by Pixar, but that suits the grittiness of garden furniture slightly better. The whole set is a beautiful rendition of a quaint English town, which almost makes me feel homesick as I shoot through space in Asia's World City Of The Fuuuuuuture, and the plot - well, it's Romeo and Juliet, obviously, but in bright colours and with a frog instead of the nurse, and a flamingo instead of the priest.

It never takes itself too seriously, but at the same time it's not one of those films that's stuffed full of jokes only the adults can get; it doesn't rely on a wave of innuendo to keep the parents alive. Instead, it's packed out with Shakespearean references (my favourite is probably Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who survived Hamlet only to found a removal company in Stratford on Avon. It's even got Shakespeare himself making a cameo role.

There's not much that I can add; it's not like it has a plot that is going to surprise anyone with even the most passing familiarity with the Bard's works; it's just a frothy confection to lift your spirits if you're feeling a little blue.

Not that we were down at all; having just been taken out for dinner by the office to celebrate our impending nuptials, things are all pretty fine here at the moment. Now if I can just manage to get my bag packed and everything ready for Friday night, things are going to be just golden.