Stars (vocally) Noah Schnapps, Hadley Belle Miller, Bill Melendez, Noah Johnston, Alexander Garfin, Venus Schiltheis, Mariel Sheets and Kristen Chenoweth Directed by Steve Martino This is a fairly odd duck. A Peanuts movie featuring our favourite crew of kids could be considered as something special, especially given that it’s coming out in this day and age when we are so wary about kids’ safety, we might long for those long ago times when neighbourhoods were much safer and imagination would rule our daily lives. We’ve either grown up with the comic strips, the numerous books collecting the strips, the various merchandising paraphernalia or the cartoon specials that would pop up on TV… or a combination of all that in one way or another. The Peanuts Movie is, frankly, a greatest hits montage assembled around one story. Almost anything you could ever want from a movie featuring Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the gang is here, rendered in glorious CG animation (3D in some cinemas, but not here) and yet, keeping to the original design aesthetics of Charles Schulz’s comic strip right down to motion lines. What effort it must have taken the animators to break the rules of CG animation in order to maintain the look of a flat hand drawn cartoon. The backgrounds, while lovingly recreated, also keep to the simplistic design of Schulz’s pencil/pen drawings. When Snoopy is imagining himself as the World War One Ace pilot, you never see his full doghouse in flight regardless of the ariel acrobatics carrying on all over the screen. In all, the animation team under the direction of Steve Martino faithfully keep to the world as created by Schulz. The core story stays with Charlie Brown and his numerous attempts to overcome his insecurities and shyness in trying to get the little red-haired girl to notice him. A secondary story involving Snoopy writing his adventurous story featuring the ongoing battle between his flying Ace and the Red Baron provides much of the action to carry a feature length 90 minute plus cartoon. That alone goes a ways to play with the power of imagination, particularly the sequence where he attempts to escape from behind enemy lines. With these two stories front and centre, the rest of the characters pop in and out as needed (yes, Snoopy’s brothers put in an appearance too). The cast do an amazing job of replicating the voices from the cartoons and as expected, the adult characters talk with that muffled “wah wah wah” sound. If anything, this is The Peanuts movie for this generation of kids who may not like flat hand drawn animation, but it may also serve as an introduction into the world of Snoopy and Charlie Brown. For the fans, this is pure nostalgic entertainment that doesn’t really try to be anything more, and that’s okay too. They don’t try to revamp or update anything. The phones are rotary land lines, there are no modern electronic devices, Charlie Brown still attempts to write with a fountain pen and not a ball pen, music comes from a record player, and Lucy still charges 5 cents for dispensing psychiatric advice. As far as family entertainment go, this is a gold standard. Charming, entertaining, fun and enjoyable. Some times, the greatest hits are just what we need. Rating: ****/5 Please support by buying or recommending to others. Thank you. - b
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
December 2017
|