[yasr_overall_rating]
A koala named Buster Moon has one final chance to restore his theater to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.
“Sing” tries to ride in on the skirt tails of “Trolls” and “Zootopia” with a mixture of their success but fails to deliver the same performance guaranteed to engross children. The characters were engaging, the plot was enjoyable, but one of the benefits of a cartoon about animals is some animalistic qualities these animals did not possess. Take this exact script and turn it into a young adult film with humans and you have a hit on your hands. With the wild kingdom serving as humans, this movie should have been full of laughter. While some scenes were quite humorous, it is underdone in the animal aspect.
The makers of “Minions,” brings you the koala Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey), a dreamer who owns a once prestigious theater. Broke with the bank ready to foreclose on the property, Moon comes up with a new plan to keep his beloved theater open: a singing competition. When his ancient chameleon secretary accidentally marks prize money as one hundred thousand instead of a thousand, a crowd assembles to audition for their chance to be the next star. Moon only holds auditions for one day where he chooses who he believes to be the best voices by himself. His meager choices include a tender-voiced gorilla named Johnny (Taron Egerton), a crooning mouse named Mike (Seth MacFarlane), a prickly porcupine called Ash (Scarlett Johansson), a motherly pig named Rosita (Reese Witherspoon) who is paired with an ostentatious German pig named Gunter (Nick Kroll), and Meena (Tori Kelly), a timid Elephant as well as two others.
The oddball group each have different hopes for the competition. Moon hopes to revive his theater. His best friend, Eddy, has invested significant amounts of his parent’s money into his friend’s endeavors and cannot afford to spend more funds on what his parents believe to be a sure loss. Johnny wishes to leave the life of crime his father has forced on him. Mike wants to live the high life and earn the respect of those larger than him, which is almost everyone. Ash wishes to keep her boyfriends attention and her teen angst. Rosita wants to find a way to be more than just a housewife, while her partner Gunter just hopes to feel the music. Meena is not technically in the show as she was too shy to audition and instead serves as the stagehand. None of the contestants are aware the prize money is only a tenth of the promised amount.
When a couple of the easily forgotten contestants drop out because of injury, Moon pushes Meena to compete. The competition starts to fall apart slowing at the seams. Seeking to find an investor for the prize money, Moon calls on Eddy’s Nana who once was well known in the theater. Determined to put on a pre-show to knock her socks off, Moon goes to great lengths to create an impressive act. The act, however, manages to leave the building in rubble. Then the contestants find out the prize money never existed. In the end, they pull together as a team to put the show on despite the lack of a building.
With over 80 songs in the film, you would think there would be something kids could sing along with. None of the songs are dynamic enough to engage the children. Weeks from now kids will still be singing “Let it Go” because this film failed to provide a sing-along-song. Other musical cartoons provide an opportunity for the children to sing along. The cute details are missing too. The gorilla never eats a banana; the pigs aren’t messy, the elephant isn’t afraid of the mouse. They are entirely human. There should have been conflict between the species which this movie did not highlight; this would have been a great area of intrigue. Maybe the movie would have been better with human cartoon characters or not as a cartoon at all. The excitement was downplayed as well. Yes, children will be entertained, but this film has more potential than was seen. A movie should use all available resources to draw inspiration and create a more enjoyable film. The characters were each unique and enjoyable in their own right, but the scope of the film was too small. The kid vibe just was not there. Even with popular names such as Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey, and Scarlett Johansson, the movie only brings enough static to get people in the door, but not to create a brilliant performance such names should garner. I would wait until the film in on Redbox, worth the watch, but not worth theater prices.
In theaters Wednesday, December 21st
