The Grinch didn't totally suck, but by the same token, it wasn't that great. Ehh. I don't know. It got the illustrious rank of three chainsaws. It's sharing a bed with such gems as Titan AE and John Carpenter's Vampires if that helps you put things in perspective.

I guess empirically it's not a bad movie. I'm just pissed on the principal of the thing. The stuff surrounding The Grinch really makes it worse than it probably is. Let me explain.

Remember the days when the Grinch was just an animated TV special? Of course it was a book first, but how many of you remember that? I mean honestly, don't act all literary on me. I know you. Couch potatoes.

In case you're keeping score at home, the whole point of the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas is that you don't need Dunkles and Dinkles and Freakyfreak Fixlers, Porklets and Pinkets and Thunderbird Mixers to experience the magic of Christmas. Christmas comes from your heart and from spending the holidays with the Whos that you love.

And what better way to express this sentiment than by packing the stores to the ceiling with a disgustingly complete selection of glossy, green-and-red packaged Grinch toys and accessories! I swear to God, I am not making this up: I was in the mall the other day and I saw a Grinch shower radio. A shower radio. I mean, for Geisel's sake, they don't even make Pokemon shower radios! What in the name of McElligot's Pool does a shower radio have to do with the story of a dangerous green psychopath who finds his Christmas spirit when his cardiac tissue swells to explosive proportions? I think it's disgusting.

Not to mention the aforementioned "Extreme Skateboarding Grinch." No shit. It's a Grinch action figure packaged with some extreme gear and one of those asinine little finger skateboards. What the hell? The Grinch is NOT extreme! He is not in-your-face! He's a demented recluse who steals Who Hash! Call me old fashioned, but I think a film's merchandising should have something to do with the movie it promotes. Like a foot-long action wiener that could be marketed with Boogie Nights. Something like that.

As put off as I was by all of this merchandising before going into the movie, it just got worse once the film started. Maybe Ron Howard lives in an alternate bizarro world or something, but as far as this reviewer could tell, the story developed for the movie was the exact opposite of the story of how the Grinch stole Christmas. Come with me, Opie. We'll run through it nice and slow.

First we meet the Whos. Unlike Seuss' Whos (who are full of joy, catchy songs, and objects with ridiculous names designed to rhyme with each other) Opie's Whos are a town full of greedy, capitalistic, Andy-Dick-looking, birth-defected freaks who are only concerned with buying gifts and shipping them on time.

Believe me now, or believe me later, I swear to God there's a scene where the Whos are having a wife-swapping party. It brings new meaning to the phrase "They'll blow their flu-flubers, they'll bang their tar-tinkers."

Considering that we all already know that they're just gonna shrug it off and sing that "Da-hoo Do-ray" song when the Grinch steals all of their stuff, doesn't it seem retarded to introduce them as being communally hedonistic and obsessed with material goods? Come on, Opie, this is the story of how the Grinch gains his holiday spirit and becomes pure, not the Whos, remember? Dumbass.

And it was a very nice touch to have the Mayor of Whoville be a dick villain type who over the years single handedly thwarts the Grinch's every honest effort to live happily in Who society. I always felt that the weak point of the original story was having the evil Grinch be the villain. No Opie, it's much better the way that you did it. Really. You're a genius.

The famous ending where the Grinch turns away from hating the joy of Christmas and learns to give and share and love is MUCH more powerful if you portray the Grinch as the victim all the way through instead of just some asshole who wants to ruin everybody's day. You should really feel for him, and know that he's not really evil, just misunderstood. Ron Howard, quit trying to be Tim Burton.

Speaking of stupid, it was also a really great idea to turn a perfectly good half hour cartoon into a full length movie by adding an unnecessary backstory. That is, if you consider Jim Carrey (in prosthetic makeup and fake teeth that make him talk like a bad Sean Connery impersonation) doing 40 minutes of wacky bullshit to be backstory.

When we finally get to the part we know and (used to) love, instead of seeing a "bad banana with a greasy black peel" Grinch steal Christmas from a bunch of peace loving Whos with so much yuletide spirit in their hearts that they need bypass surgery to clear the blockage, we now see a victimized, misfit Grinch stealing Christmas from a bunch of toy-loving, holiday-misunderstanding, wife-swapping creeps who robbed him of his life and his dignity. Somehow it just ain't the same.

And the song... that Cindy-Lou Who song. What the hell. I mean, this little piece of fluffy crap that she poorly lip-syncs her way through might have been acceptable if this was a musical, but since it wasn't, it just stuck out like an excruciatingly squeaky Jack in the Box two-way speaker dragging itself across your car's paint job as you pick up your Jumbo Jack, drunk off your ass.

So when all is said and done, is it worth it? Well, if you can't get enough of Jim Carrey doing silly things, then yes. If you're one of those purist sticklers who wants his antics to somehow relate to the firmly established character that he's playing, then no.

Besides the last half hour (which is more or less true to the Seuss story) this movie has nothing to offer you. For the first time since Austin Powers II, I'm pulling out the official misreviews "Nuh-uhhhhhhh!" stamp. I refuse to accept any of this lousy "backstory" as canon in the Seussean world, as I'm sure the rolling body of the Doctor himself agrees.