Movie review: Animation doesn't equal children's film in "Igor"

"Igor" is a peculiar little animated film that's probably too complicated for young kids. And I say it's complicated for good reasons — the story had me confused a couple of times.

So before you think bad of my intellectual capacity (too late?) let me give you the first few minutes of the film. In the land of Malaria (yeah, that's right) evil mad scientists create monsters and WMD's of all sorts and then charge the rest of the world NOT to unleash them. Now these scientists all have Igor's — little hunchback servants that are destined to a life of cruel servitude.

Our little "Igor" is different from the rest. He wants to be a scientist, too. His plan is to create a Frankenstein's monster of sorts that will be so scary the King of Malaria will allow him to become an official scientist. I think.

Of course, Igor has been experimenting all the time. In fact two of his "monsters" (which their unique personalities are a sign of things to come) have become his sidekicks. One is a rabbit of sorts that is immortal and thus has no will to live and keeps committing suicide. (I'm not kidding.) The other is basically a moronic brain in a jar with one arm.

When Igor's boss blows himself to pieces (literally), Igor gets his chance to prove himself. But hold on, another greedy and evil mad scientist, Dr. Schadenfreude (yeah, that's right), gets wind of Igor's new monster and enlists the help of sexy Jaclyn, with her baby seal boots and enormous cleavage, to steal it away.

But when Igor's monster turns out to be nice, the story so far gets flipped on its head and, I guess, tries to pull the kids back in.

I'm certain that if this film had been shot with real actors and portrayed realistically, we would call it a dark horror film with an unbelievable ending. Animated, the suicides and violence seems just "off." Animated, I guess, it becomes a children's film.