Geekscape Movie Reviews: The Peanuts Movie!
35 Years after their last theatrically released movie, The Peanuts gang is back with a brand new film.
Produced by Ice Age and Rio studio Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox, The Peanuts Movie hopes to bring back Charles M. Schulz’s beloved characters without having to resort to today’s Hollywood trap of modernizing the series. While initially cautious about the trailer, I can happily say that this is one of the most faithful and respectful adaptions I’ve seen in a very long time. Whether you’re young or old, there’s always something to enjoy while watching this movie.
The movie’s Plot is simple enough. Charlie Brown can’t do anything right. While everyone’s enjoying playing Hockey and building snowmen in the winter, he’s trying to fly a kite instead. It seems like no matter what he tries, he constantly gets laughed at and ridiculed by the neighborhood kids. All this changes though when the little red haired girl moves in across the street. Now in love, Charlie Brown is more determined than ever to prove to the new girl that he’s a winner. While all this is happening, Snoopy writes a daring tale about his encounter with his arch enemy, The Red Baron.
The animation is absolutely stunning. Blue Sky manages to perfectly pull off just the right mixture of 3D CGI while also maintaining a 2D hand drawn style that’s usually seen in the comic strips. This opens up a very wide variety of facial expressions and really makes these characters seem alive and real. This is the studios most beautiful movie to date. I’d even go as far as to say that it even rivals some of Disney and Pixar’s best.
The voice cast is also top notch. Just like the original movies and specials, all characters are voiced by kids who are about the same age as the characters in the movie. Usually child actors are un-bearable to sit through, but the whole cast here really nails the characters they’re playing. In fact, some characters like Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Linus really sound like their original actors. They were also able to keep the late Bill Melendez as the voice of Snoopy and Woodstock by using archival footage of his previous recordings.
In terms of negatives, it’s really hard to find them with this movie. I guess if there was one common complaint I can agree with it’s that there are about 1-2 Red Baron scenes too many. It really would have been nice to use those 2 scenes to further explore and show more about the neighbor characters. The movie seems to treat the audience like they already know all the characters even though for a good amount of people, this is still their first time experiencing the series.
Overall, The Peanuts Movie is one of the most fun and heartwarming movies of the year. Blue Sky Studios should be proud of what they created. With beautiful animation, great voice acting, and a touching story, this new chapter of the adventures of Charlie Brown and his friends are worthy of standing tall with some of their most classic outings. It’s also a great refreshment from some of the other failed adaptions this year *cough* JEM *cough*.
FINAL RATING: 5/5 GO WATCH IT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEdp5UgLwPg
