Ticket Price: $8.75
Showtime: 2:05 pm
Rating: PG
Running Time: 1 hours, 42 minutes
A girl named Mary Katherine (or MK, as she likes to be called) is forced to go and live with her father after her mother dies. Her dad is a mad-scientist type and is convinced that the forest near his house is inhabited by tiny humans that are also soldiers. He is right, but MK thinks he's crazy; her dad is so busy constantly running around trying to catch a glimpse of the little soldiers (or Leafmen) that he blows MK off in the process. She gets fed up and begins to leave her dad's house for good, but she lets the family pug run away and chases it through the forest.
In the world of the Leafmen, Queen Tara is trying to choose a pod to be heir of the forest when the Boggans, who bring death and destruction upon anything their arrows touch, hit the queen and most of the forest. MK stumbles upon the dying queen, is shrunk to their size, and is put in charge of guarding the pod. Travels and adventures ensure.
Worth noting: Christoph Waltz is an exceptional villain in any movie, live-action or animated. This movie was a bit more dark than I'd expect from a typical children's movie (which was an advantage for us because it wasn't all cuddles and loves and children-safe). I didn't know a thing about this movie going into it, and I was SO impressed. Usually, if it doesn't say "Disney" or "Pixar," people think it sucks automatically, but this was really great! Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Colin Farrell, Christoph Waltz, Jason Sudekis, Aziz Ansari, and Beyonce Knowles.
I will say...I felt weird going into a children's movie without having children, but that subsided when we got into the film. It had everything: comedy (the slug Mub, played by Aziz Ansari, was my favorite character), adventure, romance, action, fantasy, and lessons to be learned. Not so kiddish that an adult wouldn't enjoy it, but not too dark for children to be scared.
My Rating: 8.5/10
Josh's Rating: 8/10
IMDB Rating: 6.8/10
Do we recommend the movie: Yes! It was both of our most enjoyable non-Disney American film since the likes of "The Iron Giant." Very, very good, and I will own this on DVD.
We'll eventually end up watching this because we always seem to end up watching these types of animated movies. We got Rise of the Guardians not long ago, but I didn't care for it much. The menfolk watched the latest Ice Age one and loved it, then bought it for me for Mother's Day because I'd missed it. lol
ReplyDelete~Deb
I think you'll enjoy it if you liked Ice Age! We just watched Rise of the Guardians and I didn't really care for it, either. It was sort of boring. But yeah, Epic is great!
DeleteGlad you reviewed this one. I was wondering if I should take my kids to see it. I love that you mentioned Iron Giant. That is my 6 year old daughter's favorite movie. She loves to draw him on everything. We really loved that one too.
ReplyDeleteI hope you take your kids to see it! I think your daughter would be able to enjoy this movie without being totally creeped out by the dark theme of it! And, you will probably enjoy it, too!
DeleteThe Iron Giant is such a good movie, gets me every time. :)