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My attempt at fulfilling the goal of watching every movie available to me has turned out to be both the best and worst idea that I have ever adopted. The best reason it has paid off is in helping me come across movies which I would have otherwise never watched, which have broadened my cinematic view. The worst reason it has put me in some very odd situations added with the fact that I often find myself being the only person in attendance at some of these movies. Today’s film is an example of such a situation, where I am the sole male attendee not accompanied by a child watching this particular film.
The plot: Maya (Coco Jack Gillies) is a free spirited and unruly bee who has to stop the queen who has evil plans to take over as a royal advisor, along with trying to make sure that every mulluscan conflict doesn’t turn into an all out war between the hornets and the bees, she is supported by her countless anthropod friends.
While I do appreciate the sentiment, it does wear a little thin in a day and age where everyone seems to have put forth the same narrative of tolerance. This is one of the messages that is the simplest to articulate. From my personal experience, it is quite frankly a common sense issue; just be good to one another, party on dudes! Then again, the phrase has been used nascently and ineffectively so I do not consider it novel or intriguing whatsoever. It’s not like the attempts are exceedingly poor in attempt, but I think there is absolutely no nuance to the subject.
Overall, I would say the entire production is… average. Rather than strive towards originality, it seems to be an animated TV show film adaptation and that certainly shows, with an animation quality that can only be described as DisneyToon levels; All the characters are overly deformable like rubber toys ready to be tossed around as if they were supper balls. I suppose given the targeted the demographic, bursting colors are shoved into the film to distract kids throughout the underwhelming runtime which adds to the overly sweetened and ‘processed’ feel of the package.
The voice acting leaves a lot to be desired. Richard Roxburgh, for example, whom you might remember for his hamtastic roles in Van Helsing and Moulin Rouge, does okay in his part as Flip, the grasshopper, but nothing memorable. The rest are just as okay… although Miriam Margolyes does give a certain dignified flourish to the part of the Queen of the hive, which does show her greater experience in voice acting over the others. While I do believe that Kodi Smit-McPhee as Norman in Paranorman was one of the best family films in recent memory, here he fails to impress. The writing is very punny, although not quite as good as in Planes: Fire And Rescue. On the other hand, they’re not nearly as horrible to listen to as the other one, as some of the jokes made me laugh. Overall, the humor is much more baseline, so mostly kids and no one else would appreciate it.
Some might say that I am foolish for reviewing a children’s movie since it will supposedly not be on par with the other movies, but I do not agree. Lately, we have had The LEGO Movie, Frozen, Paranorman, The Boxtrolls and How To Train Your Dragon series that prove family films are one of the best. However, they also demonstrate why there is a distinction between ‘family’ films and ‘children’s’ films, and this is undoubtedly one of the latter. If you plan on watching it, then at least save it for when it comes out on DVD and make sure the kids are preoccupied because, to be honest, adults will gain next to nothing out of this.
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