Three stars. Rating: PG, and needlessly, for "scary images" and mildly rude language
By Derrick Bang
This is a gorgeously produced
animated fantasy, with opulent visuals and a color palette that cleverly
reflects the story beats; I’d expect no less from director Chris Wedge and his
Blue Sky Studios, the folks who brought us the Ice Age series.
The impressive voice talent is
well cast, with our primary characters granted personality and depth by Colin
Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Chris O’Dowd, Beyoncé and
particularly Christoph Waltz, who makes a grand villain.
The dialogue is droll and snarky,
with quite a few laughs coming from O’Dowd.
And yet...
Narratively, Epic is curiously flat and uninvolving: far less than the sum of
parts that should have worked better than they do. The premise is contrived and
scattershot, with bits begged, borrowed or stolen from other, superior fantasy
sagas. Waltz’s scenery-chewing malevolence notwithstanding, there’s never a
sense of genuine peril: no feeling that our heroes are in any real danger, or
that they’ll fail to save the day in the manner foretold in the first act.
The storyline is based loosely on
The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs,
one of imaginative author/illustrator William Joyce’s many delectable
children’s books. Actually, “loosely” still overstates the case; 20th Century
Fox has gone out of its way to distance this film from Joyce’s book.
Frankly, all concerned might have
done better to follow Joyce’s template more closely, since this script —
credited to Tom J. Astle, Matt Ember, James V. Hart and Daniel Shere — is a
derivative, disorganized mess. Characters too frequently seem to have been
granted screen time — and dialogue — based on the popularity of the star
providing the voice, as opposed to reasons relating to plot continuity.
That’s a bass-ackwards approach
to filmmaking, and the awkward results are plain.
Seventeen-year-old Mary
Katherine, who prefers to be called M.K. (voiced by Seyfried), returns to her
childhood home after the death of her mother, hoping to re-connect with her
estranged father, Bomba (Jason Sukeikis), who has buried himself in rather
bizarre research. Bomba (weird name, that) has spent years seeking indisputable
proof that a tiny civilization lives in the nearby forest, an obsession that
has cost both his family and his professional career.
Although delighted to see his
daughter again, Bomba hasn’t the faintest idea how to relate to her; he also
can’t tear himself away from his work.
The irony, of course, is that
Bomba is absolutely correct: The nearby woods do shelter an advanced race known as Leafmen, the forces of light
who constantly battle dark creatures of decay known as Boggans, ruled by the
rot-inducing Mandrake (Waltz). One touch of Mandrake’s magical staff, and
healthy vegetation withers and dies. Aside from the Leafmen patrols that
prevent incursions by random Boggans, Mandrake’s desire to decompose the entire
realm is checked by the Eden-like powers of Queen Tara (Beyoncé).
But the time has come for Queen
Tara to select an heir: a ritual that takes place only once every 100 years,
during the convergence of a full moon and the summer solstice. A pod carefully
selected from a special pond must bloom at that precise moment, in order to
produce a new queen.
Mandrake, in turn, wishes to
snatch the pod and force it to bloom in darkness, whereupon it will produce an
evil prince who will plunge the realm into mold and putrefaction.
The brave and stalwart Leafmen,
who ride tamed hummingbirds, are captained by the chisel-faced, battle-hardened
Ronin (Farrell). In addition to his tactical concerns, Ronin is constantly
frustrated by the undisciplined behavior of Nod (Hutcherson), a rebellious free
spirit who behaves like a typically arrogant and self-centered teen. This pains
Ronin deeply, because he long ago promised to look after Nod, after the boy’s
father perished during a battle with Boggans.
The Ronin/Nod dynamic is totally
clichéd and under-developed, with dialogue that could have been lifted from a
TV soap opera.
Through a series of events
that’ll raise eyebrows even under these circumstances, M.K. gets miniaturized —
very Alice in Wonderland-ish — and
charged with the all-important pod’s safekeeping. Cue flirtatious glances
between her and Nod, who suddenly finds a reason to think beyond his own
interests.
Again, though, this blossoming
burst of young love develops along wholly predictable lines, with uninspired
dialogue that does nothing to solidify their growing relationship. Indeed, M.K.
has much more fun sparring verbally with Mub (Aziz Ansari), a slug who fancies
himself quite the ladies’ man, his ick-inducing gelatinousness notwithstanding.
Although Mub and constant
companion Grub (O’Dowd) — a snail — are responsible for nurturing the pod with
their moist slime, they’re actually this story’s tag-team comic relief. They’re
quite good at this function: good enough, in fact, that the film grinds to a
halt whenever they’re not around. O’Dowd and Ansari deserve considerable credit
for their comic timing, but this slippery duo also benefits from numerous sight
gags, many related to their hilariously dexterous eyestalks.
Plenty of giggles also result
from the disconnect between their feisty attitudes and their spineless anatomical
limitations; as far as Mub and Grub are concerned, they’re the strongest, most
resourceful warriors in Queen Tara’s land. Grub sees no reason why he can’t
wear the armor of a Leafman warrior, and his plaintive wails — each time he’s
left behind — get funnier as the story progresses.
Mandrake, meanwhile, delivers
Shakespearean pronouncements of doom over in his realm of Wrathwood. Waltz
chews up the scenery with style, conveying a sense that Mandrake positively
delights in his own wickedness. On the other hand, we barely get a glimmer of
Mandrake’s relationship with his equally nasty son, Dagda (Blake Anderson), a
character you’d think would be significant, but who checks out so quickly — and
unsatisfyingly — that I can’t help wondering if the screenwriters simply didn’t
know what to do with him.
Contrast this with the buckets of
screen time granted Nim Galuu, a woodsian elder statesman given to
fortune-cookie bursts of wisdom ... that is, when he isn’t partying down.
Credit that aspect of Nim’s personality to his voice being supplied by
Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, which also explains why this satin
jacket-garbed caterpillar bursts into this film’s only song: a jarring
narrative disconnect that also brings
the film to a grinding halt.
As seems the case with Beyoncé’s
Queen Tara, Nim Galuu’s frequent appearances exist solely to further justify
Tyler’s presence; his character simply doesn’t make sense in this story’s
grander scheme ... but, then, it too often feels like this film’s scripters
operated without a grander scheme of any kind.
Epic frequently resorts to a make-it-up-as-we-go
approach to plotting, arbitrarily allowing characters — good and bad — to be as
weak, or as strong, as is required for any given scene. That’s a deeply
unsatisfying approach to fantasy.
Young viewers will enjoy this
film for its colorful landscape and dynamic action scenes, and for the
comic-relief chatter between Mub and Grub. Cinematographer Renato Falcão makes
excellent use of the 3-D camerawork, which grants the Leafman/Boggan skirmishes
a heady rush. Danny Elfman’s score is lively, although not his best work; I’m
hard-pressed to remember any specific main or character themes.
At the end of the day, though, Epic simply doesn’t resonate. (Just in
passing, that’s also a truly terrible title.) It doesn’t invite repeat viewing,
and I doubt it’ll have much of a home-video afterlife. Wedge should have known
better; you can’t make a good film from an inferior script.
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