Epic Is a Derivative Slog With the Forest

Presuming that there’s a secret struggle in the woodland between life and decay, the new animated movie Impressive profits to zoom into a world of small woodland Samurai (called the Leaf-Men) who ride hummingbirds and battle against the forces of darkness and rot, exemplified by gray, scaly, gnarly animals called the Boggens. Along comes ordinary-size human M.K. (voiced by Amanda Seyfried), newly reached the woodland house of her nutty scientist dad (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) and who lands in this magic small forest people world simply as the stunning and ethereal Queen Tara (Beyoncé) is dying. Offered a magic flower pod by the queen, M.K. joins a veteran Leaf warrior named Ronin (Colin Farrell) and a brash young rebel named Nod (Josh Hutcherson) as they look for to protect the sheath, which will help them crown their brand-new queen if they allow it to grow in the light of the moon during a Summer Solst … oh, forget it, it’s too intricate to clarify below. For a movie that’s so common, Epic sure does toss a great deal of contrived mythology at us.

Epic will one day live on somebody’s alphabetized movie rack right beside the 2007 spoof Epic Movie, and that rather undiscriminating customer might well question which of the 2 is more derivative. This one was co-written and executive-produced (and production-designed) by the award-winning kids’s author and illustrator William Joyce, who also wrote the lovely and modestly extravagant book The Leaf Guys and the Brave Good Bugs, from which the story was adjusted. His work and designs were likewise behind last year’s animated movie Rise of the Guardians, which, too, overzealously synthesized well-worn children’s themes and folk archetypes into a movie-friendly action tale. However Rise of the Guardians had inventiveness, energy, and rapid-fire wit– all elements that Epic sorely does not have.

It probably didn’t need to be that way, either, as the aspects are there for a potentially effective tale of parents and kids and loss: M.K. has simply lost her mother and is having trouble connecting with her father, while Ronin needs to be a surrogate dad to Nod, whose own dad was gotten rid of in activity long back. Even the movie’s bad guy, a snarly, rat-pelt-clad Boggen called Mandrake (Christoph Waltz), has just lost a son. You keep expecting the film to do something with these touching parts– even if it’s just to milk a couple of shameless tears from you at the end– however it mainly refuses. (NB: In attempting to clarify a point, I bumped into the fact that Joyce’s own little girl, also named M.K., died a number of years ago at a young age; so it could well be that the movie’s need to withstand sentimentalizing this kind of heartbreak originates from an honorable location.).

Epic Is a Derivative Slog With the Forest