**The Twits (Now on Netflix) Review: A Gross-Out Animated Misfire**
*The Twits* opens with a deceptively halcyonic Disney-like vibe—swelling strings and choir fill the air—before it abruptly KABOOFs out of existence, as if all goodness is repelled by rancid flatulence. From that moment on, the film replaces niceties with bugs, toilets, and eyeball soup, plunging viewers into relentless blecch.
This animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1980 children’s book expands the story into a feature-length film by inserting sad orphan characters and, if you’re feeling particularly pilled, a half-hearted political allegory. Paul Johnston, known for writing *Zootopia* and the *Wreck-It Ralph* movies, co-directs this first Dahl adaptation since Netflix acquired the IP. The result? Enough poop and fart jokes to fill three movies. For better or worse. Mostly worse.
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### THE TWITS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
**The Gist:**
Roald Dahl, known for his sharp tongue, thought beards were gross—so he wrote *The Twits*. (Fair warning: he also held some problematic views, including antisemitism, so reason wasn’t always his strong suit.) The film begins inside a disgusting man’s beard, where a mama flea (Emilia Clarke) narrates a putrescent bedtime story about the Twits, a truly horrible married couple living in the town of Triperot.
The beard they inhabit belongs to Mr. Twit (Johnny Vegas), who shows affection to Mrs. Twit (Margo Martindale) by playing nasty pranks on her, to which she retaliates. Their unifying dream is a capitalist one: opening *Twitlandia*, a theme park designed to give paying customers staph infections, lice, tetanus, or hepatitis A. Imagine rides made of outhouses; a bouncy pit filled with insect-ridden mattresses; an enclosed slide resembling a winding colon. Still, it might be preferable to Six Flags.
At this point, mama flea announces it’s time for a song, revealing *The Twits* as an “animated musical comedy.” The kid protests, “It’s only one song, settle down!”—which is a lie. There are three songs, none memorable or complete, written by David Byrne, as revealed in the end credits. The Twits sing:
*“We’re the only ones out here who are freeeeee!”*
Later, a turquoise fantasy creature called a Muggle-Wump, voiced by Natalie Portman, sings too. No, you weren’t hallucinating.
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Elsewhere in Triperot, in a home for orphans, live 12-year-old Beesha (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and her younger friend Bubsy (Ryan Lopez). They exist so we have someone to root for. The kids are sad because no one wants to adopt them—especially after the city condemns Twitlandia. In retaliation, the Twits steal a tanker truck filled with “liquid hot dog meat” and flood the city’s water supply, leading a family to reject Bubsy’s adoption, branding him “contaminated.” Life is pain.
Determined, Bubsy and Beesha sneak around the Twits’ compound, which is filled with dead fish, grotesque taxidermy, and stolen bowling pins. In the barn, they find the Muggle-Wumps—definitely not to be confused with the Mugwumps from *Naked Lunch*. The Muggle-Wumps, much cuter than everything else, are imprisoned by the Twits, whose tears fuel Twitlandia’s rides, an energy source that feels neither ethical nor friendly to sentient creatures.
As the children seek to free the Muggle-Wumps, the Twits decide to run for mayor to lift the condemnation of their junkyard carnival. This plot twist leads to a debate with incumbent Wayne John John-John (Jason Mantzoukas), who literally balloons and explodes onstage after eating tainted liquid-hot-dog-meat cake. So, the political allegory is perhaps less half-baked than expected.
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### What Movies Will It Remind You Of?
*The Twits* feels like a nausea-inducing blend of *Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs*’ manic hallucination and a child-friendly bleakness reminiscent of *Memoir of a Snail*. It pales in comparison to Netflix’s more appealingly offbeat animated films like *The Willoughbys* and *The Mitchells vs. the Machines*.
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### Performances Worth Hearing
Margo Martindale’s involvement is always a boon, yet even her talents can’t fully rescue this uneven film.
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### Memorable Dialogue
**Mr. Twit:** “I’m playing wit me diarrhea!”
**Mrs. Twit:** “You think squishing your face around in diarrhea is somehow gonna bring them Muggle-Wumps back?”
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### Sex and Skin
None.
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### Our Take
I’m no prude—a good fart joke can go a long way. But what about an endless barrage of them? Alongside jokes featuring hairballs, boogers, chiggers, diarrhea, phlegm, worms, and toad toe-licking? Has the movie missed anything? Only those obsessed with toe jam and clumping cat litter might complain.
*The Twits* is already pretty gross, possibly grosser than “gross.” Imagine opening an oven only to be greeted by a rump roast farting with about one-seventeenth the frequency of the film’s flatulence and poop jokes. Surely this grossness is intentional and partly in line with Dahl’s wicked spirit—though comparative nostalgia is best left to those familiar with the book (which, for me, stopped at *James and the Giant Peach*).
The orphan characters feel like a manipulative addition, designed to balance the film’s relentless visual and verbal ickiness and shrill, tinny tone. But they don’t tame the movie’s unapologetic obnoxiousness.
Visually, the film embraces a purposely ugly, rough-around-the-edges look, with 3-D animation that sometimes appears chintzy. Perhaps this is meant as an active resistance against the clean, glossy aesthetic common in kids’ animation. Still, it often feels like the film tries too hard to be “anti-” and fails to establish a coherent core aesthetic or theme.
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### Where the Film Falls Short
The screenplay by Paul Johnston and Meg Favreau feels thrown together rather than thoughtfully crafted. The musical numbers, ramshackle plot, generic characters, and political subtext (which you’re free to ignore) all feel disjointed. The rickety framing device and the late introduction of new characters stretch the pacing thin.
Attempts to temper pessimism with obvious moral lessons about empathy, love, and truthfulness come across as treacly and on-the-nose, dropped in as an afterthought. The film finally shifts to a pro-message stance at the very end—too late when the audience is practically swimming in diarrhea jokes.
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### Our Call: Skip It
Apologies for the imagery, but it’s in the spirit of the movie: *The Twits* might just give you the trots. This animated adaptation is a messy, rude, and relentlessly gross ride that struggles to offer coherence or charm. For a film aiming to entertain children—and nostalgia-tinged adults alike—it misses the mark.
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*John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.*
https://decider.com/2025/10/18/roald-dahl-the-twits-netflix-movie-review/
