I'll admit, the trailer for this movie made me groan every time I saw it over the past few months. I'm pleased to report that the trailer showcases some of the worst parts of the movie.
Granted, the biggest issue I had with this was that the humor just does not land most of the time. The writers felt the need to put a joke in every 10 seconds, regardless of whether it's clever or not. And it's not that it's "kid-humor" that I just didn't get as a 25-year-old man. Even the kids in my theater were silent most of the time.
However, I'd say about 10% of the jokes actually did work for me and I belly-laughed several times, which I did not expect.
Now, the most pleasant surprise of this experience for me was the characters. They're all very distinct and have very clear traits, quirks, and flaws that they work through emotionally through the story.
Even though it's a story that's as formulaic, cliched, and predictable as it gets, I found it effortlessly watchable as just about every scene has a very cathartic moment for at least one of the characters. This film actually got me to care about these animal characters despite its absurd silliness.
I suppose it's nothing I haven't seen before, but it was so colorful and purely competent that I can't knock on it too hard.
There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half. This is a relax-on-a-weekend-with-the-family kind of movie.
Granted, the biggest issue I had with this was that the humor just does not land most of the time. The writers felt the need to put a joke in every 10 seconds, regardless of whether it's clever or not. And it's not that it's "kid-humor" that I just didn't get as a 25-year-old man. Even the kids in my theater were silent most of the time.
However, I'd say about 10% of the jokes actually did work for me and I belly-laughed several times, which I did not expect.
Now, the most pleasant surprise of this experience for me was the characters. They're all very distinct and have very clear traits, quirks, and flaws that they work through emotionally through the story.
Even though it's a story that's as formulaic, cliched, and predictable as it gets, I found it effortlessly watchable as just about every scene has a very cathartic moment for at least one of the characters. This film actually got me to care about these animal characters despite its absurd silliness.
I suppose it's nothing I haven't seen before, but it was so colorful and purely competent that I can't knock on it too hard.
There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half. This is a relax-on-a-weekend-with-the-family kind of movie.