Several of Roald Dahl‘s books have been adapted to the big screen, with the most famous being Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Of all his books, however, his children’s book, The Twits, gets its first movie adaptation on Netflix.

The animated movie, which is now streaming on Netflix, follows the тιтular couple who are the sleaziest, smelliest, and meanest people who operate an amusement park. As they grow powerful on their own, two children and a family of monkeys must face them to save their city. As of writing, The Twits currently has a 50% Rotten Tomatoes score based on 12 reviews.

This score ranks as one of the lowest adapted movies based on a Dahl story. That’s given that there are over a dozen films based on his classic stories, with some of his most popular works including The Witches, Matilda, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. However, if the score stands, it would be the second-lowest-rated Dahl movie, just edging ahead of Anne Hathaway’s The Witches, which currently has a 49%.

Some reviewers have criticized the execution of Dahl’s story, as it doesn’t properly convey the satire or political commentary. However, ScreenRant‘s Gregory Nussen was more positive about the Netflix film, saying that director Phil Johnston delivers on the “high-brow themes and low-brow humor.” They even say the following: “It may be the best children’s horror film, if it can be called that, since Monster House, especially for how much it trusts its audience.”

With a cast that consists of Natalie Portman, Emilia Clarke, and Johnny Vegas, the Netflix musical comedy is the first to adapt The Twits to film. The original novel was published in 1980, and while there have been many attempts to make it into a movie since 2003, the story did get a stage production by Justin Pearson in 1999. A second production ran in 2015 at the Royal Court Theater, with John Tiffany as the director.

Back in 2023, there was a controversy concerning Dahl’s book, in which Puffin Books revised several of his books for derogatory language. The Twits was among the books that faced this alteration, which included removing words like batty, nutty, screwy, ugly, and hag. However, this initiative sparked backlash among readers, authors, and politicians, causing the publisher to continue prints of the original versions.