REVIEW - 'Epic'

I saw this with my family on Memorial Day but I purposely waited a few days to type this up so that I could get my thoughts in order and let things settle a bit in regards to how I felt about it.  But now that a few days have passed...


'Epic' (PG) **

A teenager is transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group characters in order to save their world -- and ours.  From the makers of 'Ice Age', 'Robots', and 'Rio', this features the voices of Amanda Seyfried, SNL's Jason Sudeikis, Colin Farrel, Josh Hutcherson (Hunger Games), rapper Pitbull, Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd (the Irish cop in 'Bridesmaids'), Beyonce, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained).

Put 'FernGully', 'Avatar', and 'Honey I Shrunk The Kids' into a blender on high speed and the resulting mixture is this movie.  Apparently this is based on a book called The Leafmen and the Brave Good Bugs by William Joyce, who not only co-wrote the movie but also wrote the book series The Guardians of Childhood, on which the movie 'Rise of the Guardians' is based off of (which he co-wrote as well).  Having not read the book, I can't say if it's a fair adaptation or not. 

Now, with that out of the way, what are some positives about the movie?  Visually, this movie is great.  It's bright and colorful, and extremely well detailed.  Honestly it's some of the best things I've seen computer animation-wise this year since the China doll in 'Oz' and the bright and colorful prehistoric world of 'The Croods'.  It's relatively fast paced and it's a simple, familiar story.  Some of it is funny and cute with much of that coming from the antics of a three-legged dog, but we'll go more into that later on.  Chris O'Dowd's snail character has some funny moments, though his buddy does not but I'll go into that later. 

But now for what I didn't like.  Aziz Ansari as the slug, which is the snail's buddy.  It could be the fact that I don't really think Aziz Ansari is all that funny to begin with, but his slug character I thought was very irritating and almost ruined the movie.  Jason Sudeikis is funny on SNL, but I didn't think his bumbling antics were that funny in this.  But humor is subjective. 

Some parts of the movie were awfully rushed and not explained very well and others took their time.  The main example I can think of is how Amanda Seyfried's character seems to respond to the events in the movie.  Her character gets shrunk and soon discovers that the mini forest people that her absent-minded and hardly ever there father (Jason Sudeikis) actually do exist.  Not only does being shrunk not really faze her at all, but she also fits right in with the Leafmen (or whatever they're called) and is always willing to help.  Sure her main goal is just to help out so that she could go home, but my thing is that she's taking these events awfully well.  Steven Tyler's ever-so-wise caterpillar character sings a song at one point in the movie, and it's grating and distracting.  I was already aware that it was Steven Tyler providing a voice for the character - no need to rub it in that he happens to be a singer in real life.   The movie itself is kinda forgettable.  I saw it, I left the theater when it was over, and was still very irritated with the snail character and every other comic relief moment that didn't work and left me frustrated.  I mean I did chuckle some times, but many of the comic relief moments I didn't really laugh or chuckle at.

Now I saw this in 2D.  That was all they had at the theater that my family and I saw it in.   Since it's an animated movie it probably would be great to watch in 3D as well and wouldn't feel like you're watching a 2D movie with funny looking glasses. 

Overall, while it does have truly great animation and it's an okay enough story with some funny parts, it does feel rushed at times, is a little distracting with who is voicing what, and certain characters attempts at comic relief or quirkiness come off as grating instead of funny.