‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ review: A creative children’s movie [Video]

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SALT LAKE CITY — In today’s world of entertainment where the audience has so many options to choose from, it’s no wonder that studios look to mine established intellectual properties with the idea that such an offering will come with a built-in audience. The fact that Crockett Johnson’s classic children’s book “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is now a film didn’t surprise me. I am curious as to how writers David Gurion and Michael Handelman pulled a 90-minute feature out of a book intended for the littlest of children.

Turns out, they made the movie a sequel to the book. Harold (Zachary Levi) has always lived in his two-dimensional world where he …