Netflix’s animation mangles and sentimentalises Dahl’s black comedy about a gross and detestable married couple – relocating the action to Texas and introducing a plucky orphan heroineThis animated Netflix adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Twits is only fractionally less gruelling than eating wormy spaghetti or finding a toad stuffed in the bottom of your bed. Dahl’s story about one of the most dysfunctional marriages in fiction is not exactly burdened with plot: the 95-page original is essentially a series of mean pranks, all monstrously mangled here and tortuously added to.There has been some outrage that Netflix have Americanised the story, but that is the least of this film’s problems. In the fictional city of Triperot, Mrs Twit (voiced by Margo Martindale) is a Texan in blue denim cowboy boots, unhappily married to Mr Twit (Johnny Vegas, keeping his Lancashire accent). The couple have built a rickety amusement park called Twitlandia, with rides made out of toilets and old mattresses, all powered by the magical tears of the Muggle-Wump monkeys. When authorities close down the amusement park on the grounds of health and safety, the gruesome twosome go to war with the city. Continue reading...
Thursday 16 October 2025
theguardian - 2 days ago
The Twits review – Americanised Roald Dahl is gruesome in all the wrong ways
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