​FILMS

the peanuts movie

Not nutty enough to excite!

2016 review number 4:

The Peanuts Movie: (Animated/Adventure/Comedy): 62 out of 100: Also known as Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie, this faithful adaptation of the comic strip featuring Charlie Brown and his gang would be better suited as a TV special. It's just not funny or exciting enough to stretch it out to a feature length film. There's a fair bit of padding involving the fictional adventures of Snoopy and the Red Baron which intrude on the main story of Charlie Brown experiencing popularity. Although these adventures are exciting at first, they end up rather boring and superfluous.

 

Charlie Brown (Noah Schnapp) is an outsider at his school because everyone disrespects him and he is bullied by other children like Lucy (Hadley Belle Miller). Along comes the red-haired girl and Charlie is instantly smitten with her. When he achieves the highest score in an exam, his life takes a turn for the better as his peers elevate him to God-like status. His pet dog Snoopy (Bill Melendez) is involved in adventures of his own as he types up a story of himself battling it out with the Red Baron and imagines that he is actually in it.

 

All the Peanuts favourites are here including Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock, Lucy, Marcie, Linus and Peppermint Patty. If you're a fan of the comic strip you'll enjoy seeing these characters lovingly brought to life in bright and colourful animation. There are no well-known actors in the voice cast but they do a fine job of portraying their characters. In fact there are no adult voices, just the sound of a brass sounding instrument representing the adult voices that is interesting at first, but becomes annoying during the course of the movie.

 

The main story of Charlie Brown seeking friendship is a worthy theme but it could have been executed in a better way as there are hardly any laughs. Therefore the indication of the genre on the IMDB website is a little misleading. Just when you're getting emotionally involved with Charlie's situation (I found it more to be a drama than a comedy), along comes Snoopy and his fictional adventures to spoil the flow of the story. It's pretty much like seeing two movies for the price of one.

 

The music score by Christophe Beck is exciting and adds some cool jazz sounds to represent the action on the screen while the sound effects during Snoopy's adventures are exemplary, indicating perhaps that the sounds you hear might even be better than the visuals.

 

The Peanuts Movie is so faithful to Charles M. Schulz's comic strip that it seems to be caught in a time warp. There are no risks taken and the story sticks to the formula that has made the comics so successful but your patience will be tested by the one and a half hour running time.

 

Featuring the voices of Noah Schnapp, Bill Melendez and Hadley Belle Miller

(88 minutes)

Additional scene during or after credits: Yes, during the credits the main characters dance, Charlie tries to kick a football while Lucy places it on the ground and Snoopy and the Red Baron are featured.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pCoVQDD-OY (Movie trailer)

 

(Reviewed on Wednesday 6th January, 2016)

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