Michael's Movie Grade: B+
Review: An excellent film. With this and The Secret Life of Pets, things are really looking up for Illumination.
One of the best things about this movie is the design work of Eric Guillon. Guillon also did the amazing design work for The Secret Life of Pets and he successeds just as well here. The whole film is just a joy to look at. While the animation may not be up to the standards of Disney or DreamWorks, this great look is so appealing, you may not care.
Important for a movie about a singing completion, the voice artists all have great voices. Many of you probably already know that Seth McFarland has a really good voice (though it probably surprised you at first as well), and as a fan of the old crooner type of music his singing Pennies From Heaven and My Way is a definite highlight to me. However just as great is Torri Kelly's beautiful vocal performance of Leonard Cohen's Halleluiah. In fact all of the voices are great. The song selection is very varied and though there are quite a few instances of songs I don't like, there were just as many that I did like.
The story is good but predictable. You could see just what was coming too often. Also there were too many side stories for the film's running time. Because of this we are not always given the time to appreciate or get sucked into them. However we do care enough about these characters for moment of these stories to work. The main story however is given enough time to be quite fleshed out, and while it is predictable it works surprisingly well.
I am looking forward to what the Illumination will bring us in the future.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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