Runtime: 1 hour, 43 minutes
Rating: PG
Director: Chris Wedge
Quick Impressions:
My stepson (who is ten) has been very excited to see this movie, so its marketing campaign obviously worked. We saw this on Friday at 5:45 in a packed house full of children. Based on the crowd noise from the audience, most of the children liked the movie. I know my sometimes hard-to-engage four-year-old daughter remained consistently fascinated. And at the end, about two-thirds of the audience burst into applause.
Part of me wanted to applaud, too, which is amazing considering my mood as the opening credits rolled. My expectations going in had been low. And we got off to an inauspicious start as we raced to the theater during a torrential thunderstorm, debating whether we needed popcorn. (We’re on a budget. I’m on a diet.) When we got our popcorn, I took one bite and got a piece of husk stuck behind my tonsil. Trying (and failing) to wash it down by taking a drink, I discovered that my unsweetened iced tea tasted like it had been brewed in a peat bog, filtered through the carcass of the Lindow Man. One minute after I got back from buying a less disgusting (and higher calorie) replacement drink, I tried to offer my stepson popcorn just as my daughter decided to move her knee, sending the bucket flying into the air and almost all of the popcorn directly to the movie theater floor. The popcorn was gone. The annoying husk remained. I was not in the world’s greatest mood.
Despite this series of small fiascos, the opening of Epic got my attention, and I watched with pleasure as it slowly evolved from a pleasant animated diversion to a surprisingly moving story not as unworthy of such a daunting name as most people might reasonably expect.
The Good:
Though the theatrical trailers don’t emphasize this (or mention it as far as I remember), Epic is based on a book called The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs by William Joyce, who also wrote novels inspiring Rise of the Guardians and Meet the Robinsons as well as the Rolie Polie Olie series.
Learning this in the closing credits didn’t surprise me because though Epic’s basic storyline is fairly simple, the world of the story is quite complex and nuanced. Early on, I thought, This seems like a literary adaptation. The environment and the habits of both the Leaf Men and the Boggans seemed so carefully crafted and loaded with untold but hinted at backstory.
And this world is one of breath-taking beauty. Blue Sky has done some really great work here visually.
The previews don’t do justice to this film. They make it look like a slapdash knock-off of other recently successful movies, loaded with celebrity voices and one liners that often fall flat. It’s much better than that.
Even though, of course, Epic invites comparison to some other memorable films—FernGully, Avatar, Arthur and the Invisibles, The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Ant Bully, Labyrinth, The Wizard of Oz—it’s a respectable work of fiction in its own right and a worthy contribution to the enormous (and quite old) fantasy subgenre involving humans crossing over into the fairy world to embark on a brief but life-changing quest. I’ve heard a lot of people compare this to FernGully, and the premise made me think of FernGully, too, but honestly I didn’t think that movie was very well written when I was a kid. FernGully has a cool concept, but this film has much better execution. (If memory serves, though, my husband loved FernGully, so I’ll have to see how he weighs in on this subject.)
The first thing that struck me about Epic was its beauty. Now I’m a person who loves wandering around out in the sunlit trees. I could do it all day. Sometimes, that is what I do all day. So maybe I just have a thing for trees that others won’t share. But I just loved the opening shots of the light streaming through the leaves. The previews led me to expect an action/comedy, but in fact, as the title suggests, this really does have more of an epic feel. (Well, actually, it’s more like a medieval romance. But it’s epic in the informal sense of being about a huge and desperate struggle between the forces of good and evil.)
Not only is the world of the Leaf Men beautiful, but there’s a horrid, unsettling beauty in the decay of the Boggans, too. Many of the characters are not only captivating but strong, particularly Ronin (impeccably voiced by Colin Farrell), the Leaf Man warrior who seems to be a kind of captain of the guard and has some kind of Elizabeth and Leicester thing going on with Queen Tara (voiced by Beyoncé).
I really like Colin Farrell (particularly when he’s not forced to do an American accent). I always have, and I think he’s great here. He doesn’t try to make light of the character or the story. He plays it as a serious adventure with the potential to become a great tragedy. Watching him, I felt like I was witnessing high minded historical fiction centered on the most important battle of a struggling nation in its most desperate hour. Ronin is one character the movie really does right and Farrell’s voice acting has a fair amount to do with that, I think.
I like Beyoncé as the queen, too, because when paired with Ronin, she really does exude such a fundamentally different yet complementary presence. She’s not like Ronin at all, but you can easily see why each needs and loves the other, and the society needs both in order to survive. Plus I thought they made her very lovely. Tinkerbelle should be insanely jealous of her elegant-yet-simple wardrobe.
Amanda Seyfried and Jason Sudeikis are very good as the human father and daughter, too. This is a very different kind of role for Sudeikis, and I think he does a good job with it. (I also love the way Professor Bomba moves when he’s excited. Only cartoon characters walk with their knees facing outwards and their legs jumping around frantically like that, but it always looks so natural on those animated mad-scientist types.) And I thought the
three-legged dog was also awfully sweet with a lot of personality. The fact that he’s still around says a lot about the professor. The fact that he’s maybe the one thing MK remembers says a lot about her relationship with her father.
I spent most of the movie trying and failing to identify the voice of Christoph Waltz. I kept thinking, “Who is this guy who’s so crisp he sounds slightly evil? I know I know that voice!” He was really marvelous as Mandrake, another character I loved. What a great name for the character, and I really loved the look of his lair, too! To be honest, I would have even more enthusiastically watched a movie that focused exclusively on the ongoing struggles between Ronin and Mandrake.
The movie is at its best when it’s giving us high stakes and heart-break. The last act is light-years better than the opening, so good and so moving, in fact, that I would not be surprised if this movie became the long-time favorite film of many elementary school aged children. It’s a serious story, and I think children will really like the refreshingly high-stakes adventure.
The song at the beginning of the credits also really grew on me as it played until by the end, I really liked it quite a bit.
Best Scene Visually:
I love the sequence that begins when the queen goes to choose a bud and ends in chaos, panic, and the major complication of the movie. Visually, this portion of the film is truly electrifying. Whoever designed the queen’s look here needs to come and make my clothes. On second thought, I couldn’t pull off that look, but maybe I could get somebody to make me a magical lily pond filled with well-dressed fairies for the back yard.
What I really love, though, is the way that the Boggans hide. Their surprise attack just looks so cool (and at the same time makes you think, Oh, of course!)
Best Scene:
My favorite moment in the movie is when you see a lonely hummingbird backlit by the moon. As this movie started, I found myself smiling now and then, but it seemed very slick, rehashed and superficial. I didn’t think I would get really emotionally invested in the story. I actually remember thinking, This is never going to make me cry. Well, I was wrong. I did tear up.
Best Action Sequence:
The rescue of Mub, Grub, and the bud is really when the movie begins firing on all cylinders. I love everything about this sequence. It just keeps getting better and better.
Funniest Scene:
One of the last things that Ronin says to Nod really amused me. It reminded me of the way my husband teases my stepson. I loved the natural ease of the dynamic. It felt very real.
The snail and the slug (voiced by Chris O’Dowd and Aziz Ansari) are very funny, too. Granted sometimes their jokes fall flat, and they often seem like they’re trying way too hard. But all the children seemed to respond well to them, and at moments, they are genuinely amusing.
I also liked the awkward moment with the dandelion lady and her less than thoughtful friend.
The Negatives:
I’ve always liked Josh Hutcherson, and I have no problem with his performance here, but the character really annoyed me. When I was complaining about him in the car, I couldn’t remember his name and kept tossing out all kinds of monosyllabic possibilities until my husband suggested, “I think it was Knob.” I replied, “Well, that’s a fitting name.” But actually, it’s Nod. Starting off as a happy-go-lucky-yet-secretly-troubled kid who has talent and bucks authority is pretty much par for the course. But why does it take Nod until the final minutes of the movie to get his act together? His continuing immaturity even in the face of a world-shattering crisis baffled and annoyed me. Now granted, the eventual emotional pay-off is pretty good, but that doesn’t make the set up less annoying. Perhaps in the book, the character’s tragic background is more haunting. Maybe we get inside Nod’s skin a bit more and realize that he’s acting out because of trauma, fear of never living up to his father’s legacy or something like that.
I think any guy who starts out so incredibly immature, self-centered, and brash and keeps it up as long as Nod does ought at least to end up King of England or Han Solo or something. Otherwise, what’s the point?
If in the end, he just ends up another decent guy (instead of a screw-up kid) then why on earth does the transition take so long? A caterpillar can turn into a butterfly in like two weeks! So why does it take Nod like nine-hundred years to make the much simpler change from Leaf Boy to Leaf Man? M.K. just lost her mother and got shrunk down to Leaf Person size, but she doesn’t waste any time brooding around whining about what’s gone wrong. As quickly as she can, she takes steps to improve her situation. She’s not happy about it, and she makes some mistakes, too. But she learns from her mistakes right away. Nod just jumps impetuously from mistake to mistake as if he never has any intention of altering his course.
Nod’s not the only character that bugged me, either. Something about Nim Galuu just seemed off. I absolutely love his name, and his home is very cool, particularly the way the scrolls seem to work. Maybe I didn’t like Steven Tyler’s performance. It’s nothing personal. I like his music. I like his daughter. It might not even be him. It might be the writing. The character reminded me too much of the Wizard of Oz, and I just had trouble trusting him. He seemed like a character with really awesome potential that didn’t get any development and didn’t go anywhere. He just didn’t feel as real as some of the others. (Even Professor Bomba who felt like a recycled cliché—the frustrated mad scientist who wants to be a good parent but can’t keep his family together—was at least convincing and reasonably likeable as that cliché.) Nim Galuu just doesn’t live up to his potential, somehow.
Bufo (voiced by Pitbull) is kind of like that, too. The character is in the film too briefly. Introducing him takes an entire scene. After that, he basically disappears. It’s weird to take more time to introduce someone than you plan for him to be in the rest of the movie. He also kind of reminded me of Watto in Star Wars, which is unfortunate since the original Watto is really more than annoying enough already.
Plus—maybe it’s just me—but I thought the world was better than the story happening within it. The world of the Leaf Men is really compelling, and the Boggans are great antagonists. But the story definitely did not feel fresh. I’m hoping this story is just the
tip of the iceberg that will lead to sequels with more original and inventive plots.
Overall:
I went into this movie with low expectations and liked it far more than I anticipated. Epic isn’t a perfect movie, but it definitely has heart. I predict that for some kids, this is going to be a favorite film for years to come, one that gets watched over and over and over again thanks to the compelling beauty of its world and the appealing high stakes of the adventure. Yes, the plot is very similar to any number of earlier features, but your average eight-year-old has not seen all of those movies and, in fact, may not have seen any of them. I really think the high stakes are going to be a big draw to children who are often offered material so watered down and toothless that there’s not much reason to care what happens.
The movie gets off to a slow (and kind of predictable, less than fresh) start, but it really picks up momentum in its final turn. Visually it is gorgeous. Even the ugliness of its world possesses a kind of stunning beauty. It’s not just that the animation looks good. It’s that the film is depicting beautiful and mysterious things, and I think that certainly makes it worth a look, particularly if you have elementary school aged children.