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'The Peanuts Movie' charms old, newbie fans
Overjoy: The Peanuts gang lift Charlie Brown and his beagle Snoopy
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Overjoy: The Peanuts gang lift Charlie Brown and his beagle Snoopy.
So, what's black, white and read all over? For old comic strips fans, The Peanuts Movie feels like walking into a classroom filled with familiar faces. And like the classic joke, it is just simply amusing.
Having been around for 65 years (reruns the past 15 years), the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts has become a favorite of many, with some using it as their first guide to cynicism.
Thanks to director Steve Martino (co-director of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!), the creator's son Craig and grandson Bryan as screenwriters and producers of the film alongside Cornelius Uliano, fans can rest assured that there are no surprises in The Peanuts Movie.
From the start, our resident piano prodigy Schroeder delivers the Fox fanfare on his baby grand piano to mark the return of the kids we've come to know well despite having last graced the silver screen in the 1980s Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!!).
Animation company Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age and Rio franchises) gave the film its 3-D computer-generated rendering, although there is not much pop-out visuals or zoom-out viewing.
Bright colors and clean drawings with some hand-drawn touches such as the signature letter Z over the snoring Woodstock and the smirk on Snoopy's face succeed in placing the nostalgic moments a nice picture frame.
The film focuses on Charlie Brown (voiced by Noah Schnapp), who is always unlucky but loved whatsoever by the rest of the gang, psychiatrist Lucy van Pelt (Hadley Belle Miller) and her brother Linus (Alexander Garfin) and Charlie's beagle Snoopy.
The voices of Snoopy and the yellow birds Woodstock were generated from voice recordings by the late Bill Melendez, who directed most of the Peanuts animated series.
Over the course of 93 minutes, Charlie tries his best to become 'a winner' as advised by Lucy especially in front of new neighbor and classmate Little Red-Haired Girl (Francesca Capaldi).
It ends on a happy note (Charlie still struggles to fly his kite, after all), but the story is not the main appeal of the film.
It is fun to see other characters getting sufficient screen time to show off their antics: Pigpen in his cloud of dust, Frieda and her curls, Charlie's baby sister Sally, baseball ace Peppermint Patty who calls Charlie 'Chuck', bookish Marcie who calls Peppermint Patty 'Sir' and the reliable Franklin.
Rather than an interconnected story, the film is more like a compilation of the strips' touchstone moments rolled into one, with Snoopy stealing the show.
First-time audiences will be enchanted by the rascal beagle dancing and acting silly with Woodstock, his bark-like laughter and the way he kisses Lucy to stop her nagging.
They can also discover the origin of Snoopy's invention of the Flying Ace character and his Red Baron obsession, while seeing his first appearance in Joe Cool mode, although only for a few seconds.
In his imagined Flying Ace character, Snoopy has a crush on femme-fatale flyer Fifi (Kristin Chenoweth) and tries to rescue her from arch-nemesis Red Baron.
Other than some minor changes in characters, such as Linus still holding on to his blanket but no longer sucking his thumb, the film stays true to the Peanuts universe that has remained untouched by the global development outside it.
Lucy still charges 5 US cents a session of her psychiatric help from her makeshift lemonade stand, Schroeder doesn't speak a word and there are still no adults around. Oh there is, but we can only tell of their presence from their muffled voices.
These consistencies are good, but may have their drawbacks in garnering new fans as the film fails to keep up with what kids today are familiar with.
Nevertheless, released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Peanuts Movie is something the creator must have been proud of as it can charm both nostalgic old fans and newbies throughout the holidays.
The film is now playing in Indonesia with a string of side events fit for the school holidays, such as a live show and the Peanuts' park at Kota Kasablanka shopping mall in South Jakarta.
' Photo courtesy of Blue Sky Studios.
