You see, I've headed this review "Shaun The Sheep Movie" because that's what's on the poster, and indeed the film's in-movie title card. It's also what the IMDB, Cineworld and Picturehouse are calling it. But "Shaun The Sheep Movie" doesn't make much grammatical sense as a title, does it?
However, Rotten Tomatoes, Odeon and Vue are all just going with "Shaun The Sheep", which seems more coherent. Although it doesn't clearly delineate that this is an actual standalone film, and could leave potential viewers wondering whether this is a new feature-length presentation, or just re-constituted TV episodes (case in point, Peppa Pig: The Golden Boots, which only has 25% new material).
Normally in cases like this, I bow to the British Board of Film Classification, since the title appearing on their register is the one submitted by the film-makers for a rating. But the BBFC page for the film throws another title into the mix with "Shaun The Sheep The Movie". On the face of things, this covers all the bases, until you realise than it's in a grammatical mire no less than the poster title. What's really needed is a colon or hyphen to break things up (to wit, "Shaun The Sheep: The Movie" or "Shaun The Sheep - The Movie". But the BBFC don't seem to think punctuation is as important as I do, so we're stuck with a title which makes me want to write on the film's posters with a red marker.
Then I came across something which seems to suggest that the situation has been a source of some discussion at Aardman Animation, too:
If Aardman don't bloody well know where the THE is supposed to go, WHAT CHANCE DO THE REST OF US HAVE? Keep in mind that although this isn't an "educational" film, a high proportion of the audience WILL be of school-age, and they don't need their suggestible minds clouded with examples of shoddy grammar and punctuation! I DIDN'T GET WHERE I AM TODAY BY GROWING UP WITH INADEQUATE FILM-TITLING.
THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH, AND I EXPECT IT TO BE SORTED OUT IN TIME FOR THE SEQUEL.
Oh, the film is absolutely outstanding, by the way. Visual-storytelling in its purest form with all the wit and warmth we've come to expect from Bristol's finest. Although it's clearly not going to be for everyone, you'd have to be some sort of psychopath to get nothing out of this film, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't wiping away a tear of joy on at least two occasions. And it's proof once again that a great film can take a fidgeting, chattering, shrieking audience of miniature humans, and leave them enraptured for the entire runtime, the only sound emanating from them being laughter.
Go and see Shaun The Sheep, you heathens.
If it's your sort of thing (and you should know from the trailer whether that's the case), then yes.
If you're not going to the cinema then you're clearly not fussed, so probably rent/telly.
In terms of Aardman animation, it's up to their usual excellent standard, yes.
It does.
Not really.
There isn't.
Well, comedian and actor Omid Djalili provides the grunts and grumbles for 'A. Trumper', the film's villainous animal warden. Djalili starred in the 2001 film Mean Machine alongside Ralph Brown, aka Ric Olié from The Phantom Menace.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Well, there's a turn-up. From an incredibly dull looking trailer comes a film which I thoroughly enjoyed. The story itself is as 'reliable' as you'd expect, but it's structured so solidly that it really doesn't matter. It's classical adventure-fare, so will be ideally suited to a younger audience, and the U-certificate means there's little in the way of any real edge or threat. But at its core, Epic is a very well-told tale, with some beautiful visuals (even in the 2D version I watched), and that should charm you to some extent. It reminded me of a lot of things I'd seen before, both in animation and live-action, but never to the point where I thought it was directly ripping-off other stories (just, y'know, vaguely. Very vaguely, a lot of the time. I spotted a Podrace and a Death Star run in there, as well as elements of Back To The Future, but that's just me).
Thankfully, the humour (visual and scripted) is kept to a manageable level, and the eco-moralising I was expecting is all but absent. The voice-acting is pretty much spot-on, and Danny Elfman's score never oversteps the mark (both of which issues have derailed many a film in the past). Most importantly, it kept the smaller viewers engaged for the full-run, so it's working for its target-audience. Saturday afternoon can be a noisy, fidgety affair in a cinema, but once the lights went down there wasn't a peep. Obviously, this didn't stop one particular Dad checking his phone twice during the film, but you can't have everything. I blame the parents.
Epic is nothing you haven't seen before, but then, it's trying to save the forest, not step outside of it. Whether it has the punch to warrant a sequel or not remains to be seen, but as a self-contained family movie, you can't go far wrong.
A small thing to look out for: In the scenes when Mary Katherineisn't miniaturised, the Leafmen are rendered with a plasticky texture, making them look like toys. Once she's in their world, the character surfaces all feel real (as real as this movie gets, anyhow). I can't work out if this was an artistic decision or a marketing one. It's quite a nice touch, either way, although it does suggest a subtext that MK and her father are dreaming or hallucinating the entire episode. As we see several mushroom-people in the forest-kingdom, it's probably best not to dwell on that one too much...
It's representative of the look, but not really the feel.
Yes.
Yes.
If it's the animation you're interested in, cinema; if it's the story, you won't lose anything by watching at at home.
No.
At some point.
No.
What do you look for in an animated movie? Do you prefer a 'classical' story-arc, or do you like it when a film spreads its wings, but risks leaving its younger audience behind?
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Monsters Inc. (3D)
Cert: U / 92 mins / Dir. Pete Docter
While the 3D is nicely retrofitted to this timely re-release, it adds little, and the actual animation is starting to look a little dated. The only reason that's even noticeable is because of Pixar's continuing high standards. With storytelling this strong it wouldn't really matter but Boo is... well creepy-looking a lot of the time.
This is still a fantastic movie, but maybe save the cinema visit for the sequel?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
DVD.
No.
Yes.
No!*1
*1 I didn't hear one, anyway. Let me know if I missed it.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
Paranorman (3D)
92 mins / Dir. Chris Butler & Sam Fell
Watch...
The Good: …It's only like a flipping cartoon of Necroscope, innit? AWESOME! Paranorman manages to be kid-friendly horror without turning up the camp (Hotel Transylvania), and spooky without turning up the kooky (Frankenweenie), and in that respect it's like a blast of fresh air. Well, fresh air with a whiff of decomposing zombie about it.
Its main strength is that it's a pretty solid ghost story, and that a lot of the humour is underplayed (which is a nice way of saying that I chuckled frequently but only guffawed once or twice). But Paranorman is more charming than any animation I've seen since The Pirates, and they both succeed by making the characters likeable without laying on the schmaltz, and funny without relying on fart jokes.
There are plenty of verbal and visual easter-eggs for grown-up fans of the horror genre, but it's still inherently 'safe'. I'm not sure what the religious-right will make of it, but that's a subject for another post.
The Bad: For all its strengths, the themes of fear, pack-mentality and social unrest and handled pretty ham-fistedly. As a result, anything that might have previously passed as subtext is essentially hollered out from the screen with a knowing wink. Maybe that's aimed at kid-level, but I think the younger audience are smarter than this script gives them credit for.
The Ugly: Outside of the opening/closing titles, the 3D is fairly pointless. On more than one occasion I was able to look over my glasses and see pretty much the same thing, only lighter. This is another thing the film has in common with The Pirates, and it's worth noting that both movies are based on actual stop-motion rather than full-on CGI. Maybe the physical scale limits the capabilities of 3D? (for obvious reasons of special effects, there is CGI in Paranorman, but it's still not eye-poppingly glaringly 3D).
All-in-all: I really enjoyed it, but I'm aware that the reasons I thought it was great are the same things that could disappoint the Burtonites. I'd recommend seeing it at the cinema just so you can witness all the model-work in its glory, but in all honesty, you probably won't lose too much by watching in on BluRay.
Yes, that good.
EDIT: Oh, and am I the only one to think that Mitch's model seems to be based on a muscular Happy Days era Ron Howard? Can't seem to find reference to it anywhere, but it's glaringly obvious to me…
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
First things first, Brave looks fantastic, and much of the scenery is borderline photo-real until the stylised characters come galloping into view. The 3D is nicely done (as usual with animated features) up to the scenes which take place in near-darkness, then it's a matter of guessing what's happening on-screen, what with the glasses helpfully protecting your eyes from the cinematic glare to begin with.
My biggest bugbear with the film is that it's a Classic Fable™ plot structure, told in an Exciting Adventure™ format, and the two don't quite meet in the middle. This kind of storytelling would work so much more convincingly if it'd been animated 20-30 years ago in hand-drawn 2D. I've nothing against 3D CGI, but it's really the wrong tool for the job here. There are frequent visual gags and slapstick which work, but again feel slightly out of place in what should be a grander telling, somehow. The voice-acting's largely on-par, but with characters as generic as these, the performers are limited to what they can actually inject into the proceedings. The only stand-out performance is Billy Connolly's, but a voice and delivery like his only serve to remind you that 'hey, that's Billy Connolly'.
But it's alright in a sort of largely generic way. Disney's writers have submitted a second-draft detailed outline, and Pixar's animators have made it look great. It's certainly better than I feared it might be, but nowhere as good as I'd hoped. The overriding theme is supposed to be about child-parent bonding and mutual communication, but what I picked up from it was 'Don't try and alter the future your parents have mapped out for you, you'll only fuck things up and it'll be all your fault.' Way to go, Disney.
Brave has all the edge of a marshmallow, and at times is just as sickly. It's heart's in the right place, but it lacks sincerity.
Enjoyable enough, all in all, but it left me with nothing.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
So:Kung Fu Panda 2. A worthy sequel to a solid original, or the chance to tell another basic fable and stick a 2 on the end? Mostly the first one, but there are shades of the second, to be sure.
The core of the story, identity and self-belief, is on firm enough ground and it's a great thing to have in a kids movie. The film opens addressing this, with hints of the backstory surrounding Po, the titular Panda. Then, it seems to lose its way for half an hour or so. It's difficult to put my finger on how exactly, as it's not like any sub-plots really take over, but maybe the whole thing could do with tightening up? It's not really until Po and The Furious Five begin to track and face-off with Gary Oldman's Lord Shen that it really picks up the pace. After this begins, KFP2 is on form with its predecessor.
There seem to be less gags this time round; at least the majority of the ones that are there are visual and in-the-moment, so that there isn't really any build-up or pay-off to them, it's largely just chuckling because Po's fallen over etc.
...if it seems like I'm judging it harshly, I'm not, it's just definitely a movie for the youngsters. There's enough thematically for the grown-ups, but they'll get more out of something like Despicable Me.
I should also point out that the visuals in Kung Fu Panda 2 are stunning, and I include the 3D in that (although the best 3D seems to be in CGI movies, when you can stretch the boundaries of the action to match the spectacle of three dimensions).
All in all: If you liked the first movie you'll enjoy this, although it's not quite the ride that its counterpart was. On its own merit? Lots of fun. It won't be the first time that the kids have heard the be-yourself message, but it's no bad thing to remind them again.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
