Gnomeo & Juliet

Gnomeo & Juliet is a 2011 British computer-animated family comedy film based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. The film is directed by Kelly Asbury, and the two main characters are voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt. The film was released on February 11, 2011.

Plot
The film starts with an intro stating that this is simply another retelling of the classic Shakespeare tale, but it is very different.

There are two huge houses that are so close to one another, they seem attached. The house on the left is owned by Mr. Capulet, and it is entirely red. The other house is Mrs. Montague and it is all blue. On the mailboxes, there are 2 sings: One with 2B on Blue and Not 2B on red, and they are both situated on Verona Drive. When the owners drive off, the weather vanes of each house signal to the gnomes in the gardens that they can come out and play. One of the Blue gnomes fling a snail to the other side, making it plummet into a snoozing Red’s mouth. Lord Redbrick, leader of the Red, goes over and peeks in the peephole and sees Lady Bluebury, leader of Blue, and they exchange some barbs.

Lady Bluebury's son Gnomeo and his friend, Benny, pull out a lawnmower, and they are up to something. Lady Bluebury calls Gnomeo over and not wanting to get in trouble, he runs over and tries to distract her, but she knows he’s up to something and winks at him, telling him not to lose to the Reds.

On the other side, Juliet climbs a tree to look at the roof of a greenhouse across the street. There is a special flower growing at the top, and she thinks that if she can get it, it will make their garden beautiful and will give the Red gnomes an edge over the Blues. Her father, Lord Redbrick, calls for her, and she is startled, and almost falls but lands gracefully. He still freaks out and admonishes her but Juliet is annoyed at the insinuation that she’s so delicate and helpless. Juliet stomps off and figures if she’ll prove that she’s not delicate by retrieving the flower.

What Lady Bluebury was referring to earlier is revealed, as we see Gnomeo and Tybalt of the Red side going against each other in a race using lawn mowers in between the houses. The rules are, basically, don't cheat, but Tybalt, who is pretty mean, does so anyway and gets Gnomeo’s lawnmower wrecked. Benny runs over and accuses Tybalt of cheating, but Tybalt just laughs and kicks him before riding off. The blue gnomes that were watching are furious, and Gnomeo launches a plan to sneak in to the Red side to sabotage Tybalt’s mower. At night, Gnomeo and Benny prepare to sneak in. Gnomeo has dirt streaks and is dressed all stealthy, and Benny goes dressed as a sunflower with a can of spray paint strapped to his back. At the same time, Juliet is planning to sneak out too to get the flower. Her friend, Nanette the frog, helps her find an outfit that will disguise her. They settle for a black sock that covers her entirely, with eye and arm holes.

All the gnomes are sleeping except for some watch guards on the Red side. Gnomeo and Benny makes it through, even though Benny makes noises every time he moves because of the spray can. Gnomeo reaches the garage and sees Tybalt’s lawn mower, but when he turns around, Benny has snuck over to the well and is spraying graffiti on it. Gnomeo watches as he loses grip on the bottle and it hits a sensor and alerts the Reds. Gnomeo and Benny run for it. Gnomeo uses a hose to shoot Benny to the other side, but now he’s stuck. He manages to get a hold of a pair of underpants and parachute away.

He lands in a patch of grass and is not sure where he is. He sees a figure darts across the brick wall and is entranced. He runs alongside to follow. Juliet, who is actually very agile, reaches the top of the greenhouse and is about to reach for the flower, when Gnomeo, who followed on the other side, reaches for it too. They don’t recognize each other from each other’s disguise. She apologizes but when she realizes that he wasn’t a gnome of the greenhouse garden, states that the flower is hers. They start playing catch and grab with the flower, playfully swinging from the pipes and panes. They eventually land on a small log in the middle of a pond. They both hold the flower and is about to pull in for a kiss when the log collapses and they fall in the water. Under the water, their disguises fail, and they see that they are enemies. Juliet freaks out and runs away, and Gnomeo tries to follow her and is almost caught by Tybalt patrolling. Juliet, still nervous, covers for Gnomeo and says that she didn’t see anyone, which makes Gnomeo like her even more.

Juliet returns to her little pedestal/tower and Nanette sees that she doesn’t have the flower and figures out that she has met a boy by how Juliet is acting. Juliet reveals that it is a Blue and Nanette instantly reacts dramatically to the doomed nature of their relationship. Later that night, Gnomeo sneaks back into the Red side while they are still on high alert from the intrusion and finds Juliet. She tries to get him to leave, but he wants to talk. Gnomeo takes a step and accidentally steps on a switch that activates Juliet’s tower, beaming out lights and blaring music. Lord Redbrick runs over to tell her to turn it down, and Gnomeo barely manages to escape with the help of Nanette. After steering her father away, Juliet checks through the top of the fence to see if Gnomeo’s OK. His head pops up on the other side, and he gives her the flower that she wanted. She takes it, and as they are about to kiss but their heads get stuck. They agree to meet tomorrow at the greenhouse place at 11:45.

The following morning, Ms. Montague wakes to see the ruined lawn mower, and Mr. Capulet sees the graffiti on the well and they instantly blame the other. Ms. Montague stomps inside, saying she’s going to buy the best lawn mower money can buy, which when hearing, makes Benny grin. He spies on Ms. Montague while she goes on the lawn mower site on the computer. A popup for the Terrafirminator V.O., a lawnmower that resembles a small monster truck, makes Benny giddy, but he is disappointed when Ms. Montague settles for a cutesy Kitten lawn mower instead. When his owner disappears, Tybalt talks to his minions and they plan on taking revenge by destroying the wisteria plant in the Blue’s garden (Blue’s pride and joy).

It is time and Juliet and Gnomeo gets ready for their little date, jazzing themselves up in ways only a gnome can. About to step out, Juliet gets sidestepped by her father introducing her to Paris, a fast-talking nerdish gnome. She distracts him with Nanette (who finds him adorable anyway) and slips off. Gnomeo and Juliet meet up and are excited but are not used to their freedom. They find a very old lawn mower that Gnomeo can’t start up so they try to find some gas in the old shed. They pick the lock and opened the shed and realized that there is someone else in there. They are scared, but it is just a pink flamingo lawn ornament that introduces himself as Featherstone. He has been locked in there for 20 years and is very excited to be outside again and to have people to talk to. They manage to start the lawn mower, and Juliet has a great time being free and riding it. They lay in the grass until they have to go. They arrange to meet same time tomorrow.

Gnomeo returns home, smitten. His pet Shroom runs up to him, and Gnomeo realizes something is wrong. He goes to the main garden to see that the wisteria is gone. All the gnomes are sad and Lady Bluebury is crying, as the wisteria was something Gnomeo’s father planted before he died. She asked Gnomeo where he was, and Gnomeo says he was nowhere and begins to feel immensely guilty. The Blues are riled up, and Benny asks Gnomeo to lead the counterattack that would devastate ALL the Red gnomes and Gnomeo immediately thinks of Juliet.

Meanwhile, Paris is trying to serenade Juliet, but she isn’t interested. Nanette, however, forms a crush on Paris. She looks on and see the flat stone hippo ornament twitching and see Gnomeo’s hat. Excited, she runs down. Gnomeo is actually trying to carry out the attack and props the hippo’s mouth up and leaps over and aims his blaster at the Red’s prized tulips, when Juliet is in front of his crosshairs. She’s scared and realizes what he is aiming at and storms off. He tries to call after her but has no time and jumps back down the hippo’s mouth. With her mouth free, the hippo yells out, and the Reds are alerted. At the bottom, Benny asks what happened, and Gnomeo says there was something up with the blaster and just leaves. After Gnomeo leaves, Benny shoots the gun and sees that it is fine.

Next morning when they meet up, they fight. Gnomeo asks her to understand, and Juliet states that this is JUST like Blues, which starts the Red vs Blue feud again. Featherstone doesn’t like them fighting and tries to interject, but they both lash out at him. Hurt, he apologizes and says that he knows he talks a lot but he just likes having friends for once. He walks off. Gnomeo and Juliet feel guilty and tries to call him back. They go into the shed and see a lot of clippings about a house being sold. We see a montage of what happened to Featherstone in the past: he had a love that was his matching set. They spent time in the front gardens of their owners who were a happily married couple. Soon, the human couple began fighting, culminating in them splitting up and selling the house. The wife takes Featherstone’s love to the moving van, and the husband tossed Featherstone in the shed.

Gnomeo and Juliet feel even more badly, and Featherstone shows up and says that someone else’s hate took his love away, and he couldn’t do anything, but they could. Gnomeo and Juliet reconcile, and Gnomeo asks Juliet to stay here, in the greenhouse garden, with him and they can start over. Juliet agrees.

Benny, who got suspicious of Gnomeo, followed Gnomeo and sees the two together. Benny yells and runs away. He crosses over to get back to the Blue side, and Gnomeo tries to run after him. Tybalt spots Benny and goes after him. Eager to spot a stray Blue after the recent intrusion, Tybalt goes after him on his lawn mower with a shovel in his hand. He races after the Benny and takes the shovel and slices into Benny, shearing his hat off. Benny is sitting down in shock, touching his severed hat. Gnomeo gets mad and runs after Tybalt and leaps onto his lawn mower, fighting him as it is still racing down the alley. Gnomeo knocks his weapon away and is about to hit him with the pipe when Tybalt asks if he would really hurt him. Gnomeo falters and Tybalt brakes to get leverage on Gnomeo. He is pressing on Gnomeo when Gnomeo warns him about the wall. He laughs it off as a trick, but Gnomeo slides away from the lawn mower in time to see the mower trip against a dirt hill and Tybalt flying off and smashing into the wall.

All the noise has drawn all the gnome inhabitants, and they go to see what’s going on. Red side sees the smashed bits of Tybalt and starts advancing on Gnomeo. Lord Redbrick is shocked when Juliet hands him a pipe to defend himself with. Gnomeo is chased onto the streets, and he is on the edge of traffic when a jogger comes near. The gnomes instantly revert to the gnome state, which really freaks the jogger out to turn the corner to see a crowd of gnomes. She slowly steps away and hits Gnomeo, landing him onto the streets. He is still in his gnome state and is in the middle of traffic as the other gnomes watch. A truck comes by and there is a loud sound of breaking glass, and the gnomes are shocked and see a pile of blue chips on the ground where Gnomeo was. Juliet cries and all the gnomes return, subdued, stating that there has been too much smashing. Shroom stays behind, and we see the bits of blue are from falling teapots from a delivery truck, and Gnomeo survived. He jumps off the truck’s grill and lands on the other streets and waves happily to Shroom. However, a bulldog is right above him and grabs Gnomeo in his mouth and runs away. Shroom instantly runs off to try to get help.

Lord Redbrick has Juliet glued to her pedestal, stating that he doesn't want to lose her like he lost her mother, to which Juliet turns her back on her father in disgust. Benny, wanting complete revenge for Gnomeo, is too focused to listen to Shroom’s pleas. He sneaks into Ms. Montague’s house when she leaves and accesses her laptop. He cancels the order for the Kitten lawn mower and gets the Terrafirmator 4.0 on 1 hour rush delivery. Shroom enlists Featherstone’s help to find Gnomeo.

Gnomeo escapes the dog and has to play garden gnome when some kids find him. He eventually ends up on the top of a statue of Shakespeare’s head who tells him the ending of Romeo and Juliet, which makes Gnomeo appalled. He falls off the statue and is caught in the nick of time by Featherstone and Shroom, who sniffed him out. Gnomeo gets the sense that Juliet’s in danger by the two and races home on Featherstone’s back. Meanwhile, the Terrafirminator has arrived, and the Blues are ready to fight. Benny, manning the huge lawn mower, crashes it through the fence that splits the yards up and wrecks everything on Red’s side. He loses control of the vehicle, and it runs through Blue’s side too until it gets stuck in a ditch. The Reds rally up and race forward to fight back. Fierce tomato catapulting and whacking from miscellaneous garden tools commences. Juliet and Nanette remain at the tower, as Juliet can’t move because of the glue. Gnomeo scales the fence and heads for Juliet, and she is elated to see he is alive. The Terrafirminator has acquired a target fixed on Juliet and is revving the engines, fixed on Juliet. Gnomeo tries to get glue off but he can’t. By now, the lawn mower getting free and racing through has gotten everyone’s attention, and they see that Gnomeo is alive and with Juliet. The Terrafirminator hits a ramp and soars in the air, heading for the tower. In slow motion, everyone is shocked as they see the couple struggle to get free. Juliet tells Gnomeo to go, but he won’t. The Terrafirminator collides in the tower, and there is a mini explosion the garden.

When the dust and rubble clears, gnomes from both sides approach the tower to see if the couple survived. They see an arm pop up, but it is just another gnome. Redbrick and Bluebury are shocked and walk up to the tower together. They are grief-stricken and tells the other that they are sorry they lost a daughter/son and realizes that it was both their fault. They state that the feud is over. Everyone begins to walk away when Gnomeo’s arm pops out of the rubble. He is okay, and he pulls Juliet out too. Everyone cheers and Juliet and Gnomeo kisses after noting that this is a better ending.

The owners come home and freak out at the devastation. Ending: both Red gnomes and Blue gnomes have a dance party together outside. Tybalt is glued back together. Featherstone gets his love back when Benny orders her off the computer. Gnomeo and Juliet get married, riding off on a purple lawnmower.

Cast
There is no counterpart for Mercutio, as stated by James MacAvoy in an interview with NBC, "Gnomeo in this is a little bit of amalgamation between Romeo and Mercutio. We don't have that Mercutio character in this. We don't have that leader of the pack, which Romeo isn't but Gnomeo is a little bit."
 * James McAvoy as Gnomeo, the protagonist; counterpart to Romeo Montague.
 * Emily Blunt as Juliet, the deuteragonist; counterpart to Juliet Capulet.
 * Michael Caine as Lord Redbrick, the leader of the red gnomes and Juliet's overprotective widowed father; counterpart to Lord Capulet.
 * Jason Statham as Tybalt, the main antagonist and counterpart to Tybalt.
 * Maggie Smith as Lady Bluebury, the leader of the blue gnomes and Gnomeo's widowed mother; counterpart to Lady Montague
 * Patrick Stewart as a statue of William Shakespeare.
 * Ashley Jensen as Nanette, a plastic garden frog and Juliet's best friend; a flamboyant water squirter who is loyal to Juliet; counterpart to Nurse
 * Matt Lucas as Benny, Gnomeo's impulsive and tall-hatted best friend; counterpart to Benvolio, though the fate of his hat being smashed by Tybalt is similar to Mercutio's.
 * Stephen Merchant as Paris, a nerdy red gnome who was arranged to marry Juliet; counterpart to Count Paris.
 * Ozzy Osbourne as Fawn, a garden deer. The secondary antagonist and Tybalt's best friend; counterpart to Peter.
 * Jim Cummings as Featherstone, a lonely plastic flamingo with a thick Spanish accent; vaguely resembles Friar Laurence. His name is a reference to Donald Featherstone, the creator of the pink flamingo lawn ornament.
 * Hulk Hogan as Terrafirminator V.O., an announcer who tells people to buy the Terrafirminator.
 * Julie Walters as Miss Montague, the elderly owner of the Blue garden. Her face is shown briefly in the beginning of the film.
 * Richard Wilson as Mr. Capulet, the owner of the Red garden. His face is briefly shown in the beginning of the film.
 * Kelly Asbury as Red Goon Gnomes; counterparts to Gregory, Sampson, Anthony, and Potpan.
 * Shroom, a silent mushroom and Gnomeo's friend; counterpart to Romeo's servant, Balthasar
 * The Bunnies, a group of small, cement bunnies that act as servants for Lady Bluebury and others in the Blue Garden; counterparts to Abram and other miscellaneous servants of the Montagues.
 * Dolly Parton as Dolly Gnome the lawnmower race announcer

Production
Gnomeo & Juliet is directed by Kelly Asbury. The original screenplay, inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, was written by John R. Smith and Rob Sprackling. Asbury, Mark Burton, Kevin Cecil, Emily Cook, Kathy Greenberg, Andy Riley, and Steve Hamilton Shaw worked on the final screenplay. Prior to the casting of James McAvoy and Emily Blunt, the roles of Gnomeo and Juliet were to be voiced by Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet, respectively.

The film was the original idea of Sprackling and Smith, who sold the spec script to Disney through Rocket Pictures. Initially, the film was going to be produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, but was shut down by its new chief, John Lasseter, after the Pixar acquisition. Miramax Films picked up the project and guided its production until the division closed down. Australian director Adam Elliot was approached and asked to direct the film, but he rejected the offer due the film's incompatibility with his style, as well as his lack of experience with CGI. The film later was picked up and produced by Starz Animation in Toronto. It was released under the Touchstone Pictures banner on February 11, 2011, becoming Touchstone's first animated film since 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas and also Touchstone's first and, for so far, only film to receive a G rating from the MPAA, despite some brief mild language used. The film's worldwide premiere was at Disney's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on January 23, 2011.

The film was distributed in the United Kingdom and Canada by E1 Entertainment, and the film was released in 3D. Elton John and director Asbury presented 10 minutes of the film at the Cannes Film Festival.

Starz Animation Toronto (which also made 9) produced all of the animation for the film, including the stereoscopic version.

In addition, this film reunites veteran British actors Maggie Smith and Michael Caine, from the 1978 Neil Simon comedy California Suite, in the roles of Lady Blueberry and Lord Redbrick, respectively.

Box office
Gnomeo & Juliet has earned $99,967,670 in the North America and an $94,000,000 in other countries, as of October 23, 2011, for a worldwide total of $193,967,670. Gnomeo & Juliet was ultimately a sleeper hit for Disney. On its first weekend, the film had a worldwide opening of $30,680,933. However, on its second weekend - Presidents' Day weekend - it topped the worldwide box office with $29,832,466.