After Rio and the Ice Age series, animation studio Blue Sky return to the big screen with Epic. Taking place in a magical world where tiny warriors fight to keep the balance between life and decay, the title might be a bit overconfident, but this a still a fun family movie, which will keep the smallies enthralled, while raising a chuckle or two from the adults in the audience.
After the death of her mother, teenager M.K. (Amanda Seyfried) finds herself living with her estranged father Professor Bomba (Jason Sudekis), who is obsessed with with artifacts which supposedly point to the existence of The Leafmen, a group of tiny warriors that protect the forest where Bomba lives. When M.K. discovers the Leafmen actually exist, she finds herself, along with leader Ronin (Colin Farrell) and rookie Nod (Josh Hutcherson), drawn into an age old battle to stop the forest from rotting away.
First off, the animation in Epic is absolutely stunning. Extremely colourful, it is a step away from the overly cartoony style of Blue Sky's other efforts, with slightly more realistic character designs, and an eye towards more action orientated story telling. The world of the Leafmen is wonderfully brought to life, with some neat touches, from hummingbirds saddled to be rode into battle to our world moving at quarter speed when seen through their eyes, adding a lot of flair to proceedings. While the story feels overly familiar, we have seen similar tales a hundred times before (FernGully: The Last Rain Forest is the first movie that sprung to mind when I saw the first trailer for this), Epic does make an effort to put it's own stamp on the well worn elements, though they probably won't linger with you too long after the credits have rolled. Themes of dealing with loss and eco awareness are weaved into the main story, and while well handled most of the time, they feel heavy handed as the film nears its finale. It moves at a great pace for the most part, but it often gets bogged down by cramming way too many details in and introducing characters only to drop them minutes later. And the bad guys motivation doesn't really ring true, adding up to not much more than they want to destroy the forest, because.....y'know EVIL! The humour is incredibly well pitched, mostly from Chris O'Dowd and Aziz Ansari as talking gastropods, appealing to both the kids and adults in the audience.
In terms of voice acting, it is a mixed bag. Christoph Waltz steals the show as the big bad Mandrake, his voice dripping with menace, coming across as an animated version of Hans Landa. He's has some of the best moments in the movie, just because of the amount of fun he seems to be having. Seyfried and Hutcherson play the romantic leads well, with Seyfried especially selling the hell out of her role. Farrell seems bored most of the time. Ronin is supposed to be a legendarily stoic warrior, but Farrell sounds disinterested, phoning in most of his lines. Beyonce Knowles, Steven Tyler, and, for some reason, hip hop artist Pitbull all lend their voices, but they don't do much of a job of being anyway memorable.
Epic is a fun little movie, which would have benefitted more from putting as much effort into the story as it did into the absolutely beautiful animation. The smallies will eat it up, but the adults in the audience should get a kick out of it as well.
After the death of her mother, teenager M.K. (Amanda Seyfried) finds herself living with her estranged father Professor Bomba (Jason Sudekis), who is obsessed with with artifacts which supposedly point to the existence of The Leafmen, a group of tiny warriors that protect the forest where Bomba lives. When M.K. discovers the Leafmen actually exist, she finds herself, along with leader Ronin (Colin Farrell) and rookie Nod (Josh Hutcherson), drawn into an age old battle to stop the forest from rotting away.
First off, the animation in Epic is absolutely stunning. Extremely colourful, it is a step away from the overly cartoony style of Blue Sky's other efforts, with slightly more realistic character designs, and an eye towards more action orientated story telling. The world of the Leafmen is wonderfully brought to life, with some neat touches, from hummingbirds saddled to be rode into battle to our world moving at quarter speed when seen through their eyes, adding a lot of flair to proceedings. While the story feels overly familiar, we have seen similar tales a hundred times before (FernGully: The Last Rain Forest is the first movie that sprung to mind when I saw the first trailer for this), Epic does make an effort to put it's own stamp on the well worn elements, though they probably won't linger with you too long after the credits have rolled. Themes of dealing with loss and eco awareness are weaved into the main story, and while well handled most of the time, they feel heavy handed as the film nears its finale. It moves at a great pace for the most part, but it often gets bogged down by cramming way too many details in and introducing characters only to drop them minutes later. And the bad guys motivation doesn't really ring true, adding up to not much more than they want to destroy the forest, because.....y'know EVIL! The humour is incredibly well pitched, mostly from Chris O'Dowd and Aziz Ansari as talking gastropods, appealing to both the kids and adults in the audience.
In terms of voice acting, it is a mixed bag. Christoph Waltz steals the show as the big bad Mandrake, his voice dripping with menace, coming across as an animated version of Hans Landa. He's has some of the best moments in the movie, just because of the amount of fun he seems to be having. Seyfried and Hutcherson play the romantic leads well, with Seyfried especially selling the hell out of her role. Farrell seems bored most of the time. Ronin is supposed to be a legendarily stoic warrior, but Farrell sounds disinterested, phoning in most of his lines. Beyonce Knowles, Steven Tyler, and, for some reason, hip hop artist Pitbull all lend their voices, but they don't do much of a job of being anyway memorable.
Epic is a fun little movie, which would have benefitted more from putting as much effort into the story as it did into the absolutely beautiful animation. The smallies will eat it up, but the adults in the audience should get a kick out of it as well.
