Story
The unfortunate kingdom of Malaria has been afflicted with perpetual storms and rain for years. King Malbert (voice of Jay Leno) has combated this adversity by making Malaria the centre for evil scientists and their evil creations. Their evil creations are used to blackmail the rest of world, who pay large amounts of money to stop the release of the creations.
Dr Glickenstein (John Cleese), one of Malaria’s most famous but inept evil scientists, is working on his latest entry for the Evil Science Fair, when he is accidentally killed. His oppressed but clever assistant, Igor the hunchback (John Cusack), decides to use this opportunity to live out his dream of being an evil scientist. With his friends, Scamper the immortal rabbit (Steve Buscemi) and the less-than-brainy Brain (Sean Hayes), Igor creates a living evil monster, Eva (Molly Shannon). Unfortunately, Eva’s ‘evil bone’ doesn’t work, and after a series of mishaps, she in fact thinks she’s an actress.
Further troubles arise when Dr Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard), a rival evil scientist, and his shape-shifting girlfriend Jacqueline (Jennifer Coolidge) also plot to steal Igor’s invention to win the competition and overthrow King Malbert. With the help of his friends, Igor must try to convince Eva to be ‘evil’ for the competition. This will enable him to realise his dreams, survive threats to his life from the king and Dr Schadenfreude, and expose the biggest cover up the kingdom has known.
Themes
Evil scientists
Violence
There is some violence in this movie. For example:
Sexual references
None of concern
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
None of concern
Nudity and sexual activity
There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie. For example:
- Schadenfreude and Jacqueline have a brief romantic tango scene, and in another scene they kiss.
- Jacqueline’s alter-ego Heidi is depicted as a voluptuous woman, but no direct comments are made about her generous cleavage.
- Heidi kisses Igor.
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
This movie contains some mild coarse language and name-calling.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Igor is a light-hearted animated comedy about good and evil. Young children may find some scenes scary, and the themes and aspects of the dialogue complex. Older children will enjoy the amusing ‘big’ characters and slapstick humour, and there is much for adults to enjoy in the clever dialogue.
Values in this movie that you might wish to reinforce with your children include:
- not being limited by other people’s expectations of you
- striving and working hard towards your dreams
- friendship and loyalty
- the idea that we all have the potential to be evil but can choose not to be.
This movie could also give you the opportunity to discuss with your children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:
- name-calling, belittling and demeaning others
- prejudice
- the use of violence as a means to an end
- lying, being deceitful, cheating, stealing.