Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024)

A picture book whose whole magic is an empty page somehow became a movie that crams every corner of the frame. Zachary Levi plays a grown-up Harold whose Narrator has gone missing, so he sketches an exit out of his book and lands in Providence, Rhode Island, with Moose, his old storybook buddy, now a human played by Lil Rel Howery. Terry, a widowed mom, accidentally hits them with her car, and her dreamy son Mel begs her to let the two strangers sleep over. Harold snapping off a piece of the crayon for Mel is the sweetest beat in it. Then the hunt for the Narrator drags in Jemaine Clement as a librarian sitting on an unsold fantasy novel, and wonder loses to noise. It sits at 28% on Rotten Tomatoes. A 3.9 because the crayon deserved a simpler story. $8,406 says you dig out the original book afterward, read it in one sitting, and get more out of it.

What works: Benjamin Bottani’s Mel gives the movie its warmest moments, especially when Harold breaks off a piece of the crayon and hands it over.

What doesn’t: It buries a famously simple book under a cluttered real-world plot, and the big showdown in the town square is pure noise.

Who it’s for: Families with kids young enough to believe a door drawn on the wall might actually open.