Igor

All creatures are not created evil in the foul, fabled kingdom of Malaria. Take reanimated (and animated) body-part puppet Eva (voiced by Molly Shannon) — her name was supposed to be "Evil", but she refuses let anyone call her that. The giant monstress turns out so sweet and charming, she has to be sent to harm school to get into the malevolent mindset needed in order for her bumbling creator, Igor (voiced by John Cusack), to have a stab at winning the Annual Evil Science Fair.

Not that polite, kindly Igor really wanted to compete anyway, but after his Master (John Cleese) disappears in a puff of smoke, he's forced to step up… anything is better than letting 17-years-straight champion scientist Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard) win again! Helping Igor set his creation on (hopefully) the wrong path are his sidekicks Scamper — an "anti-Thumper" bunny who cannot be killed, portrayed by a curmudgeonly and snarky Steve Buscemi — and Brian — Sean Hayes as a gleefully goofy Aby-Normal styled dumb brain floating in a liquid-filled jar. Christian Slater, Jay Leno, Arsenio Hall and Jennifer Coolidge round out the voice cast.

Set on a cross-country odyssey to make Eva the Evil she was supposed to be before the big competition commences, the trio goes through heck (it's rated PG) and high water. Even the little places mean a lot. At one point, as Scamper's browsing the greeting card rack at a convenience store, he muses, "Whatever happened to cards that just blew your head off?" and then quickly opens one which does just that. His noggin sprouts back up with a nostalgic smile, "See?" He says, "That's what I'm talking about." Scamper has several outrageous Loony-Toons inspired "death scenes" throughout the movie, which are pretty inventive.

The hunchback and his cute crew sing and dance their way through this quite tame and clichéd story, set to 3-D animation that's super-stylized and more than just a little reminiscent of A Nightmare Before Christmas. The misfit minions are all admittedly adorable but more or less inert, given an inherently uninspired script. Izzard and Coolidge are standouts as the mustache-twirling villains, but other than that Igor is strictly flimsy family fare.

Competent, but not a prizewinner.

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