I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

How The Grinch Stole ChristmasAfter walking out of this feature the only thing one remembers and discusses about is Jim Carrey and his excellent performance in it since beyond that it doesn't have anything to offer. How The Grinch Stole Christmas is a reasonable childish feature that fulfills and checks off each and every fantasy of a five year old kid but forgets to offer anything more than that in order to satisfy it and hence restraints itself to go bold. Ron Howard is disappointingly not in its A game resulting into some poor execution, amateur editing and loosely placed sequences. As mentioned earlier, its a Jim Carrey's show and he has a lot to offer in here, with amazing skill and perfect comic timing he demands attention from the viewers. How The Grinch Stole Christmas has some one liners, cliched comic sequences and petty writing that miraculously comes alive and helps survive it by stellar performance.

Some things are just not meant to be live action. Dr Seuss must have been rolling in his grave as his second wife sold the film rights of his Christmas hit to Universal Pictures, who then ran with the idea that live action was the way to re-imagine these beloved children's books. They would begin the Dr Seuss cinematic universe and fill their films with big name comedic stars to draw in audiences. They would stretch 30 page picture books into bloated, overstuffed feature length films. They would replace the simple, economical illustrations of the original with grotesque costumes and lurid colour schemes (Bo Welch, the director of The Cat in the Hat, began his career as a production designer in Tim Burton films such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, and copy and pasted the same eye-popping style into his own film). Gone was the playful bounce of the Seuss rhymes; a dark menace replaces the atmosphere hanging over Whosville as Christmas approaches. The town was once a circle of warmth and generosity, until a Christmas ghoul by the name of Ron Howard came along and turned it into the capital of greed and consumerism. The film takes something well meaning and good hearted and turns it into a garish toyland to serve its extended plot. Given the challenge of forcing a hour plus long conflict from a picture book, the script turns the story on its head - it was actually the Grinch who was the original victim, a case of schoolyard bullying, and the Whos who become the villains. Seeing the makeup of these Whos, it's hard not to agree - they've taken quaint cartoon figures and replaced them with life sized humanoids sporting button noses that make them look like some god-forsaken pig-dog mutation out of a secret government lab. Perhaps Howard realised that such monstrosity could not be the heart of the film; no wonder the most innocent of all the Whos, precocious little six year old Cindy Lou, never has to sit in that makeup chair. Her character must over-correct for all the Who buffoonery with a cloying sweetness that by now has become a holiday cliche. If you didn't hate Christmas like the Grinch does during the opening credits, you just might after a little girl keeps popping up to shove tinsel and mince pie in your face. Creepy as the Whos are, they are no match for the real antagonist of the story, the eponymous green Grinch who lives up in the mountains and is revered as a Christmas legend. The script's attempts to humanise him this time around via flashback only serve to make audiences recoil further; his junior form is propped up on the school chair like a creepy puppet, forced sympathy engineered on strings. His adult self isn't the Grinch. It's Jim Carrey in a green fur suit, with a transatlantic-Connery-esque growl thrown in for good measure. Maybe executives were drawn to the manic energy of a Carrey, of a Myers. They thought they could ride on the screen power of these comic icons and then slap on a Seuss label. Carrey is aggressively twisted, and not in a good way. One could barely stand the sight of him with a pot belly and nothing else (clothing for his bottom half is optional, apparently), gyrating and sashaying all over the place. Seeing him fidget and snarl, seeing him shove those hairy pipe cleaners he calls fingers into his nostrils and crunch beer bottles with his fangs, we can see this isn't the mischievous fiend that Seuss envisioned. This is our drunk uncle in a creepy Halloween costume, belching all the way into December. Getting Carrey allows them a little mileage for a few elongated action sequences, if only to further press the point that everything the Grinch touches turns to disaster (the camera assumes the position of some drunk bird that can't stop tilting its head). It's too bad that most of this action mimics the same juvenile trash that belongs in cheap sitcoms. You know, crotch humour, exaggerated slapstick, Grinch getting catapulted right into a woman's cleavage, or pinning mistletoe on his behind. Most of it is pitched at a juvenile level but actually aimed at adults; kids won't recognise the Chariots of Fire theme, or register any of his extended stand-up monologues (to himself), and when Carrey winks and talks right into the camera it's just another gag ("And this time I'll keep it off."). They've never seen the Chuck Jones cartoon anyway, for comparison. I'm actually impressed at how atrocious this adaptation is. It takes a great deal of talent and incompetence to turn a cartoon classic into this gaudy, useless trinket. Is there any upside? Well, at least it isn't as bad as The Cat in the Hat.

This movie is okay, it's your standard feel good Christmas movie. But, I just cant watch it comfortably, it's the village peoples (Whos) faces. They just make me cringe to the point where I have to turn it off. Which is annoying because I am a big fan of Dr. Seuss and I wanted to enjoy this film. Apart from that, it's not too bad. Prefer the book (for once).

BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 200 HOLIDAY FILMS. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM HONEST ABOUT THESE FILMS.The beloved book and animated special gets turned into a a mega budget movie directed by Ron Howard starring Jim Carrey. In this feature length film we get to see why "The Grinch" became "the Grinch". The film is packed with the right amount of laughs and heart. All the Whos down in Whoville enjoy celebrating Christmas with much happiness and joy, except the Grinch (Jim Carrey), who hatefully resents Christmas and the Whos with great wrath and occasionally pulls dangerous and harmful practical jokes on them. As a result, no one likes or cares for him. Meanwhile, six-year-old Cindy Lou (Taylor Momsen) believes everyone is missing the point about Christmas by being more concerned about the gifts and festivities. After her two brothers are harassed by the Grinch when they trespass on his domain, and she herself has a face-to-face encounter with the Grinch at the Post office, in which he saves her life, Cindy Lou becomes interested in his history; she asks everyone what they know about him, and soon discovers that he has a tragic past.The Grinch actually arrived in Whoville by mistake when he was a baby, and was adopted by two elderly sisters. Although he showed some sadistic tendencies as a child, he was rather timid and not the cruel, selfish person he would become. He was bullied by his classmates (particularly by Augustus May Who (Jeffrey Tambor), who grew up to be Mayor of Whoville) because of his appearance, with the exception of Martha May Whovier (Christine Baranski), who was courted by both the Grinch and May Who. One Christmas season when he was eight, the Grinch made a gift for Martha, but attempted to shave his face after being made fun of for having a "beard", cutting himself by accident. When his classmates saw his face covered with shaving tape the next morning, they ridiculed him yet again. He lost his temper, went on a rampage and ran away to live on a mountain to the north of Whoville, Mount Crumpit.The one scene that should of been cut is when the child sings "Where are you Christmas?". It stops the film. The song should of been sung over the closing credits.