A lovely sweet film that overcomes its clichés with pure and utter sincerity.
This movie was a project of passion. Writer and director Jill Culton came up for the idea for this movie seven years ago while working at DreamWorks Animation. She did some work on it, but then left the studio. However one of the heads at DreamWorks saw some of her work and called her back to make the film. She then spent a year and half making this movie. During that time Jill didn't lose her passion for the project.
This passion and work can certainly be felt in this movie. The storyline may contain many clichés we have seen before, but few of them feel forced. Our main character Yi, is extremely likable and relatable. Her emotional arc feels very real and it is hard not to feel for this character. Her talking about her dad bring some surprisingly very emotional and well written lines. They bring a surprisingly very intelligent look into the different effects loss can have on different people. While some may cry, others may just isolate themselves from everyone and everything. This is what Yi does as she spends no time at home with her family and avoiding her friends. Instead she is doing small jobs. Her emotions become numb as all that becomes important are tasks that will never fill the hole inside her. This reality keeps this fantasy movie grounded and completely believable to us. We believe her, so we have no problem believing the fantasy. The film is also visually gorgeous. Some moments of this movie are completely breathtaking. You really begin to feel like you visited these places and went on the adventure with them (which is exactly what I want from an adventure film). Since Everest cannot speak words, character animation is very important. Luckily this was done extremely well. Everest feels as fully formed as a character as Yi. While some humor falls flat much of it is actually quite good. I wouldn't call this a hilarious movie, but the jokes made me smile and sometimes laugh.
However as much as this movie made its clichés work, there was one cliché that felt forced as all get out. This is the villains. These are bland stereotypical movie villains we have seen a million times before and there is nothing about them to cause any interest. Also much of the modern day references about selfies and social media felt unnecessary and will date this movie that should feel timeless.
All in all this is an excellent film and a definite recommendation from me.
-Michael J. Ruhland
No comments:
Post a Comment