ANIMATION/COMEDY

It’s a tough life for hunchbacked assistants of mad scientists. Igor (voiced by John Cusack) ekes out his precarious existence as humble servant to the sinister Dr Glickenstein (John Cleese), an evil genius set on winning the annual evil science fair in the badass province of Malaria. But when Igor decides to enter the competition himself, his stitched-up creation of life takes the form of a mountainous Bride of Frankenstein-style creation called Eva (Molly Shannon).

Whether Igor can ever forget his hump and find true happiness with Eva is the question posed by Anthony Leondis’ decent but uninspired animation, which skews towards kids with a twisted sense of humour, or adults who enjoyed the Tim Burton/Henry Selick collaboration, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Chris McKenna’s gag-heavy screenplay clumsily posits an inverted world where evil is a better career move than good, but hits a stride when Eva turns out to be unexpectedly wholesome lass. Even when she’s picking bunches flowers in the meadow, Igor’s lab-rat chums forlornly hope ‘Maybe she’ll form them into a club and beat us with it.’ But Leondis’ style is far to close to Tim Burton to pull many switches, with Igor’s derivative nature highlighted by a jive soundtrack that only points out the pathos of Danny Elfman’s score for Corpse Bride.

General release from Fri 17 Oct.