SCHOOL'S out, August is upon us and the Summer box office is thriving. Cinemas across the globe can breathe a sigh of post-pandemic relief.

At the time of writing, Inside Out has topped $1.5bn worldwide and become the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time in the process. Despicable Me 4, too, is heading north of $1bn, while Deadpool & Wolverine looks set to become the most successful 15 certificate film ever made. Heck, even Glen Powell’s Twisters has outperformed expectations. It would seem that lousy weather isn’t a downer for all quarters of society.

Against such high benchmarks, Harold and the Purple Crayon may struggle, much as did John Krasinski’s IF back in May. It’s a tough market for high-concept, live action family fare.

From Carlos Sandhana, best known for directing the third and fourth Ice Age films, Harold and the Purple Crayon adapts the 1955 picture book of the same name by American cartoonist Crockett Johnson.

Released sporadically across the last 70 years, Johnson produced ten Harold books in his lifetime, the last hitting shelves posthumously in 2020. Saldhana’s adaptation runs with Johnson’s original concepts but adds a whole new dimension to the adventure.

Take Harold himself. In the books, Harold is little more than a toddler, a young boy with a magic crayon. Saldhana’s film casts 43-year-old Zachary Levi in the part and has the grown up Harold, tired of life within flat pages, draw himself a door into the real world.

Alongside Levi, Lil Rel Howery and Tanya Reynolds play Moose and Porcupine, fellow 2D characters brought to life in the real world, while Zooey Deschanel can’t help but recall her role in Elf for a part that asks much the same function.

Jemaine Clement is the film’s big bad, playing both Gary Naswich and proof of the crayon’s dangers in the wrong hands, while newcomer Benjamin Bottani fills the heart of the whole as the youngster Harold befriends.

If it all sounds a touch familiar, it’s because you’ve seen this film before. Stories of characters from simpler worlds befriending lonely kids from our own, causing chaos and teaching the virtues of imagination. There’s always a maniacal villain, just as there’s always a struggling single Mum.

Levi always brings his zany A-game but in a busy multiplex, don’t be surprised if the kids would rather revisit the Minions.