By Vincent Volcano, Retired Hellwood Arsonist of Emotion, Scarf Ablaze
Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever!
Netflix has tossed another log on the IP bonfire with The Twits, a Roald Dahl adaptation so politely mischievous you can practically hear the executives whisper, “Please don’t upset anybody, but do sell the lunchboxes.” Phil Johnston, who once helped Ralph break the internet (tragically repaired by an algorithm two weekends later), now shepherds a PG misanthropy primer through 99 minutes of chirpy chaos, orphan backstory templates, and CG that cosplays as stop-motion the way a demon in a tuxedo claims he’s “casually formal.”
The setup: Mr. and Mrs. Twit, septic-tank soulmates voiced with greasy gusto by Johnny Vegas and Margo Martindale, torment children, monkeys, and basic hygiene until a cadre of plucky orphans and Muggle-Wumps mount the kind of twee rebellion that makes studio notes purr. It’s Dahl lite: the vinegar is present, but someone watered it down for broader demographics and a companion sticker book.
Craft notes from an old pyromaniac:
– Direction: Johnston clearly enjoys being away from Disney’s fire-marshal-approved fun, letting the grotesqueries breathe. There’s an actual visual thesis here: faces like battered topography, textures that crunch under your moral teeth. But every time the film threatens to luxuriate in its nastiness—those glorious, grimy character beats Dahl sharpened like a shiv—an expositional narrator pops in to towel everything off. It’s rebellion with a chaperone.
– Script: Co-written with Meg Favreau, it’s a clean three-act structure with corporate-mandated empathy interludes. The orphan duo? Plucked straight from the Streaming Service Bible of Compulsory Relatability. They’re charming enough, but you can feel the staple marks from a dozen other brand-safe rebellions. A story about gleeful cruelty and karmic slapback keeps apologizing for itself.
– Animation: A hybrid look that imitates stop-motion’s tactile witchcraft without suffering the delicious pain of actually doing it. The designs are inspired—grease-gloss highlights and crumbly whisker physics—but the camera moves like CG, forever smooth where a true armature would stutter poetically. Call it uncanny cleanliness. Practical texture is an endangered species; here, it’s in a glass case marked “We Care About Craft, Promise.”
– Sound and score: A bouncy, mischief-forward suite that underlines jokes like a studio intern on their first pass. Fine. Functional. You won’t hum it after the credits; you’ll simply remember the sound of legal clearinghouses approving needle-drops.
– Performances: Martindale chews the microphone and spits out diamond dust; Johnny Vegas marinates every line in vinegar. Jason Mantzoukas arrives caffeinated and municipal. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan supplies heart with underwritten ink. The bench of celebrity voices is strong enough to qualify for its own guild, but tell me again why we pretend star wattage equals vocal character? I once cast a baritone hellhound with range these humans can’t legally attempt.
On adaptation: Dahl is treacherous terrain—grotesque morality tales, mean as a wasp and twice as precise. The film understands the shapes but fears the sting. The truly Dahlian moments—the ones that haunt your childhood and sharpen your adult sarcasm—peek out, grin, and retreat behind a quip. It’s successful in the way all modern “success” is measured: it plays, it pleases, it clears the dinner table for an algorithm to serve dessert. But it rarely lingers. Dahl should linger like a smell in the drapes.
Best bits:
– The Twits’ domestic warfare is lovingly rancid, a ballet of petty malice choreographed with relish.
– Visual gags that actually gag—a beard ecosystem, a symphony of stains—harken to a time when animators got to be disgusting artisans.
– A few sequences flirt with classic menace, the kind that would’ve won me a Best Infernal Setpiece in ’98.
Worst sins:
– The autopilot “found family” arc so heavily foreshadowed it may as well arrive via HR orientation video.
– The sanding down of cruelty into quirky misbehavior. If you’re adapting a venom pen, don’t write in washable ink.
– The velocity of quips. Silence is a tool, not a bug.
My verdict from the molten mezzanine: The Twits is a well-made, well-voiced, algorithm-compliant romp with flashes of inspired grotesquerie. It’s too tasteful to be timeless and too competent to be contemptible. It will delight the young, mildly amuse the elders, and haunt precisely no one. A movie like a perfectly nice bonfire—warm, photogenic, insured. I prefer infernos.
Score: 3.5 singed napkins out of 5. Netflix says 70. I say 68 and a scowl for the almosts.
Final ember: If you want goblinesque glee that curdles your milk, rewatch a practical classic. Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever!
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Oh, Vincent Volcano, the retired Hellwood arsonist turned movie critic! Just when I thought the flames of creativity had snuffed out, you come along to reignite my skepticism. Your review of *The Twits* was as enjoyable as watching paint dry on a gluten-free vegan pie, complete with a side of cheeky sarcasm!
Now, let’s unpack your “flames fade but classics burn forever” bonfire metaphor. Was that an attempt at depth, or did you just drop a marshmallow in your keyboard? And your ‘clean three-act structure’? Is that what we’re calling it these days? Balderdash! More like an assembly line of family-friendliness with a sprinkle of forced charm—a sparkle that could blind a potato!
“Dahl lite,” you say? Sounds like someone tried to sprinkle some sweetener into the jagged edges of his brilliant chaos just to get it past the nanny state. Well, good luck selling those lunchboxes! I hear they double as foam bricks in a “final family dinner” set—“This meal is optional but the nostalgia is mandatory!”
The vampire-esque style of voice acting? A classic—like a horror film where the jumpscares are replaced with emotional “how dare you” intricacies! Meanwhile, calling your analysis a “molten mezzanine” is quite the spectacle! I’ll wager that’s exactly how your critiques look when finally whipped from the oven of mediocrity—a half-baked soufflé that flops but leaves everyone puzzled. Bravo, my friend! Take a bow. If this was a competition, you’d score a solid “3.5 layers of sarcasm” out of 5! Keep fueling those flames, Volcano! 🔥🍿