Made in 2009, this film garnered some pretty loud support. Unfortunately, I don't think it was quite worth all of the hype. After months of waiting for it to come out on DVD, I finally got to see it and was not impressed.
Viewed on 10 April 2010
Starting out, this film has alot going for it. It's quick, initially clever, and well-acted. The voice actors (among them the well-known George Clooney, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, and Meryl Streep) are fantastic. Somewhere at about the 20-minute mark, something flails and the movie kinda tanks.
The animation is well-talked about, so let me address it first. It looks like stop-motion, much in the tradition of Tim Burton and "Wallace and Gromit". However, it's seemingly "rougher"--the characters have jumpy motions, each scene has several obviously distinct layers, and the actual "characters" (the furry movable figurines) have bad motion errors. The errors include shifting fabrics, wild fur, and unrealistic movements. Some of the shots are interesting; however they're not enough to salvage the rest of it. A few of the "special effects" just look forced, as if there were mistakes made and the filmmakers just wanted it to be chalked up to being "artistic" (for example, smoke looks like stretched-out Brillo pads at one point). I was interested for about a half hour. By the second half of the film, I was honestly tired of seeing skippy characters and unnatural fur movement.
The writing of the film was also highly publicized. I personally did not care for it. At first the random scenes and meaningless jokes were intriguing, and I was interested, thinking, "Oh wow, that's going to be important later!" But nothing was ever explained, and some actions by characters are explained with a shrug and an offhand "I'm just a wild animal, honey." The tone of the dialogue was very even, and there was not much conflict or suspense in the entire movie. I felt as if I spent almost 90 minutes watching the actions of characters whom I wasn't really attached to, nor did I feel worried when things happened to them. The ending is very unrealistic and unsatisfying, and it doesn't solve any of the original problems--some characters remain liars and thieves, and others are left with bitter anger.
NEGATIVES:
>>There is no "official" foul language--however, the characters all use the word "cuss" freely. For example, "What the cuss is going on in here?" or "He's just a big cuss." One of the conversations is as follows:
- " I understand what you're saying, and your comments are valuable, but I'm gonna ignore your advice."
-"The cuss you are."
-"The cuss am I? Are you cussing with me?"
-"No, you cussing with me?"
-"Don't cussing point at me!"
-" If you're gonna cuss with somebody, you're not gonna cuss with me, you little cuss!"
-"You're not gonna cuss with me!"
No joke. This is what half of the dialogue is like.
>>There is an awful lot of smoking done by one of the "bad guys", and alcoholic apple cider comes into play more than once.
>>I didn't catch any inappropriate allusions or innuendos.
>>Violence includes animals falling, a rather scary fight with a large rat, one animal having his tail shot off, chickens being caught by other animals, karate fights, and a couple of comic electrocutions.
The good things in this movie are the themes in it: Stealing is a bad idea, family is most important, stick together with your friends, and becoming more responsible and leaving bad habits behind. Also, as I said before, although the dialogue is stiff and made me feel as if I were watching a film full of inside jokes that I didn't get, the acting was wonderful.
I give this film 3 out of 6 stars.
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