The Peanuts Movie:
Charlie Brown, the social pariah of his school and community, seems to never have the upper hand on life. His constant embarrassments and failures only reinforce his peers' views of him. Suddenly, a new student arrives: a little red-haired girl. Instantly becoming infatuated with her, Charlie Brown must find a way to impress her while not making a fool of himself, as he always does.
It's probably the most basic film I've seen this year. There's no twist or action scene or grand epic finale, it's just a simple, nice film. The only surprise I had was how much I enjoyed it. Even though I'm very nostalgic for the Peanuts cartoons, I was kind of on-the-fence about this film. BlueSky Animation is sometimes hit-or-miss with their projects, and I'm so nostalgic for the characters it seemed like it would be surreal to see these characters in a new, modern take. Luckily, the people who wrote the film are Schulz's own son and grandson, and the studio was able to get his widow on board, so my worries were slightly eased. Finally, after seeing the film, I can say it felt like a full-length Peanuts special, though with slightly more cohesion, and that's the highest compliment paid to it. It didn't update any of the timeless feel of the strips and specials, with the characters making no references to any modern tech or social media, which is something they could have so easily done to appeal to the modern audiences. This was a film made by people who cared enough to try and accurately replicate the look and feel of the original material, while adding in the polish of modern animation and adding in their own takes on characters.
The animation is so unique, it looks exactly like a 3D version of Schulz's original drawings, and some of the sequences, such as Snoopy's fantasies, provided some nice visual flair among the sometimes simplistic environments explored by our main characters, and showed the full scope of what can be done in a Peanuts cartoon now. The opening animated short featuring Ice Age's scrat was fairly amusing as well and had some nice animation, but felt a little jarring when placed next to the tonally so distinctive Peanuts.
The opening 20th Century Fox logo's theme music being played by Schroeder on piano reminded me of The Simpsons Movie featuring Ralph Wiggum wailing the Fox theme music. The ending credits feature a character dancing by whatever credit is being shown on screen at the time, and they put the detail of having Schroeder as the music icon, and it's the little touches like that that show me that people who made this put a lot of thought into it.
The story, like I said, is charming in its' simplicity. While the ending is not nearly as melancholy or bluntly realistic as the strips and specials could sometimes be, it still retains the theme of failure as just a part of life that Schulz included many times in his work. The writers included some nice references to the strips and previous specials if you are familiar with them (a moving truck company is named after Peanuts producers Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez), but doesn't rely on one's nostalgia for them to make it a great movie. There were time in the film where I was actually on the edge-of-my-seat because I could so relate to Charlie Brown's fear of being in front of his peers trying to do something, his fears of failure in front of his peers, etc.
The music by Christophe Beck is great, as it is able to try and replicate Vince Guaraldi's unmistakable style that he used in scoring the original cartoons, but doesn't feel like a carbon copy. The only complaints about the music are the uses of pop songs: once in a montage, and over the end credits, with at least one being by Meghan Trainor. They don't fit with the end of the movie at all and I feel are the only things that could date the film.
The voice acting is excellent, with most of the performers replicating the sound of the original voice actors remarkably. Bill Melendez, who passed away, still voices Snoopy and Woodstock through archival voice recordings.
The only other complaint I have with the film is the fact that it would make for a great film to watch for the holidays, only the climax takes place in summer, which kind of throws that off. But you almost can't watch it any other time of year, because 3/4 of it is set in the holiday season.
The Peanuts Movie is brilliant in its' simple, down-to-earth approach. It is non-pretentious, and has no need for the spectacle seen in so many animated features these days. Not since Wreck-It-Ralph has an animated film come along that has touched me in a way that I can't really explain, but one came around again: this one. Especially after the disappointments of Frozen and Big Hero 6 and the semi-disappointment of Inside Out, and unlike Goosebumps, it doesn't almost entirely rely on nostalgia to keep you entertained. No need to modernize or reference pop culture every few minutes for cheap laughs, just telling a nice, uplifting story. I don't know if it's just my nostalgia talking, but it made me feel almost like a kid again watching it, and it's the first film this year to surpass expectations I had for it, and the first film since Sicario I've wanted to go back and see again, only even moreso than that film. I can see myself watching it in coming years during the holiday season along with the other Peanuts specials. If you have no attachment to the franchise at all, you can still appreciate it as an above-average family film. If you do enjoy the franchise, you'll probably love this movie. This is something I think it is safe to say Charles Schulz would have been proud to call his own. 8/10 stars.
(Image: Wikipedia)
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