I miss the days when animated films seemed more innocent. It's a shame movies like Igor focus so much on attracting viewers with big-name talent, rather than with an eye-catching style or a great story. Heck, WALL-E worked just fine, and the lead character's voice was nary more than a few bleeps and blorps. Although Igor embraces a clever story with lots of potential, it's ruined by an endless cycle of bad puns and bad slapstick. 

Welcome to Malaria, a kingdom straight out of a Universal horror movie. Every night is a dark and stormy one, and the local economy consists of creating diabolical inventions which hold the rest of the world in fear. Behind every mechanical monster or death ray, there's a mad scientist and an Igor, a hunchbacked assistant who does most of the work but gets none of the credit.

After his master is felled by an experiment gone awry, one particularly intelligent Igor (voice of John Cusack) finds himself needing to devise something to present at the upcoming Evil Science Fair. Luckily, he has the perfect idea: an undead creature designed with the sole purpose of destroying everything in sight. As it turns out, though, Igor's creation (voice of Molly Shannon) is more interested in acting than in terrorizing the countryside, causing Igor to wonder whether a life of evil is worth pursuing after all.

As a long-time admirer of old horror flicks, I kind of looked forward to seeing Igor. Even though I was wary of how much of the movie would be homage and how much would be aimed at the kiddies, I held out hope, and my expectations were met with the film's  weird sense of humor. Scenes ranging from an immortal bunny (voice of Steve Buscemi) who's constantly committing suicide to a chorus of blind kids singing "I Can See Clearly Now" definitely appealed to my warped side. These parts of the movie were a blast to watch, and for a while, I was having a lot more fun with Igor than I expected -- that is, until it began remembering its duties as a children's film.

In the hands of someone like Tim Burton, Igor would've been a work of genius, but as is, it's both daring and not daring enough. The film's creators put themselves in the tricky position of appealing to both kids and adults, and it often tends to go overboard in both departments. The frequent gallows humor might go over the heads of some little ones, whereas their parents will view the corny puns (including "Kill-oseum" -- ha, ha) as being on par with a bad episode of "The Addams Family."

And, unfortunately, there's plenty more about Igor that disappointed me. The animation style is done in the same cheap, chunky way as TMNT and Happily N'Ever After, in which filmmakers seem to have a grudge against curves and decide to end just about everything at a point. Igor's worst offenders, though, are its cast members. Shannon gives a sweet turn as Igor's creation (who pummels other evil inventions while singing a tune from Annie, no less), and Buscemi is a riot as the suicidal rabbit. But just about everyone else comes across as pretty flat, perhaps because a paycheck was their only motivation. Cusack's Igor is so-so, Sean Hayes annoys as a motormouthed brain in a jar, and in the film's most gross injustice, comedy great Eddie Izzard sounds absolutely bored as a rival scientist out to steal Igor's secrets.

Will youngsters enjoy Igor more than adults? I'm not so sure. At the screening I attended, a little girl and her parents left about halfway through, possibly because some of the material was a bit too grown-up. At the same time, the juvenile jokes failed to appeal to many adults. I think Igor is a decent enough move that tries to please everyone but ends up pleasing no one. 

MY RATING: ** (out of ****)

(Released by MGM and rated "PG" for thematic elements, scary images, action and mild language.)