Epic

Epic is about a smart, spirited, and headstrong 17 year-old, teenager named Mary Katherine "M.K." who, after the death of her mother, moves back to live with her estranged father, Professor Bomba, along with her pet dog, Ozzy. Bomba has long studied a group of warriors who live in the forest and protect it as guardians of good. He often will go into the forest and survey them. She, like every other human in the movie, doesn't believe in all the stuff her father has devoted particularly his life to. She loses patience with him and his stories and their reunion is all but a disaster. One day, the professor does not return from a hike in the forest, so Mary Katherine sets out to look for him. Hours later, she comes upon a group of glowing, falling leaves. Catching one of them, she is suddenly shrunken down. In her minuscule state, she discovers the group of warriors Prof. Bomba has studied, who are known as the Leaf-Men. When she is forced to reside with the Leaf-Men, she gains a new perspective and developed friendships with everyone in the forest. To find her way home, M.K. must do than believe in this world; she'll help to save it from the Boggans and their ruthless, villainous leader Mandrake. This is a story about betrayal, sacrifice, friendship, love, bravery, courage, and caring for something else rather than yourself.

The acting is really superb and all the actors have great chemistry together: Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Christoph Waltz, Colin Farrell, Aziz Ansari, and Jason Sudekis are terrific, while Beyoncé is the best of all. She is a real acting triumph in the film, and her performance is so critical in the film, as Queen Tara will do anything to ensure the safety of the forest and the lives of her friends, and that she leaves M.K. a very important mission to do her behalf when she couldn't. She brings a lot of integrity, passion, and heart to her role and helps carry the film with spectacular grace.

There's a lot to love about the film, including its production design, visual artistry, and the 3D, which are as dazzling, grand, spectacular, and innovative as, say, Avatar. The 3D is really worth the price of admission; the film features strong emotional depth and an immersive experience that can be greatly experienced in 3D, and the animation, in particular, is terrifically phenomenal and realistic. Danny Elfman did a very good job with the music score as he captured the spirit, excitement, essence, and heart of the film.

With the script written by William Joyce, James V. Hart (Hook, August Rush), Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart), and Daniel Shere, the story's narrative was famillar to other films, but so was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, How to Train Your Dragon, Hotel Transylvania, and The Croods, and yet, it was cleverly written that it stands out on its own from other films so there's nothing to worry about. They, along with Chris Wedge and the story artists, have aggressively expanded William Joyce's original story by giving it fantastical mythologies about the forest, more development on the characters, and the supplementing the action-adventure genre in the story as Wedge envisioned. I liked the fact that Joyce worked on the script, because when you have a small story that was expanded to be more ambitious and dramatic, then it's best to have input from Joyce as he included a lot of cool and interesting plot points in the film.

For instance, Joyce modeled Mary Katherine (M.K.) very much after his own daughter; she, unfortunately, died from a brain tumor in 2010 and it was a very personal and devastating loss for him. I truly wish that this movie should've been dedicated to her memory, as it would mean much to her family and friends. She would've been very proud of the movie, her father's work on the film, and the main character in the film, Mary Katherine (M.K.).

Wedge's direction triumphed the most in the film. He came a long way from his beginnings and he wanted to make the film something special. He wanted to make this as an action-adventure epic on the scale of Ben-Hur, Star Wars, Gladiator, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and he succeeds it. He doesn't intend it to be cute and I'm grateful that it wasn't; previous action-adventure animated films Titan A.E. and Atlantis had intense situations with childlike supporting characters, thus leaving the films with a poorly identified targeted audience about what's a film's targeted audience and this was not the case for Epic. I liked how he handed with both the characters and actors, and his direction is ingenious and visionary. He can really handle big ambitious epic films with ingenious storytelling on this scale, even if it's an animated film. The epic spectacle is never at the expanse of the story, characters, and the heart of the story.

Epic goes to prove to people that animated films can also really handle the action-adventure genre as much as live-action films do, just like how Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Akira, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Incredibles, and Kung Fu Panda trilogy did. With this film, Blue Sky Studios wanted to prove everyone that they can do so much more than pop culture references, cheap jokes, and unimaginative storytelling. They've not only exceeded that, they surpassed it and beyond. With this film, this is a promising launch of the new Blue Sky Studios, which has declared war on DreamWorks, Disney Animation, and Pixar.

You will be laughing, astonished, amazed, blown away, and inspired, because Epic truly stands out as one of the most surprising film experiences of the year, and could be one of the best films of the year.

When you're vying for a slice of the kiddie-dominated box office and your competition is a couple of sequels/prequels with established (and popular) characters, having a moniker as suggestive as Epic is a great way to improve brand awareness. The downside is you instantly set the expectations level quite high, and anything less than, erm, epic, seems like a missed opportunity. Beautifully designed and action-packed, this motion picture from the creators of the Ice Age franchise boasts impressive visuals and exciting set pieces – ultimately creating a tiny forest world that is endlessly inventive and always fun to watch – yet struggles to make an impact where it truly matters: with the story. This environmentally-focused tale is at times too morally forceful and employs blatant cop outs to wrap up its various strands of plot, whilst the main group of players are unoriginal and overly reliant on stereotypical characteristics. The voice cast – including Colin Farrell, Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler and Beyonce Knowles – are all fine without being memorable, with Christoph Waltz's irreprehensible villain and Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd's crowd-pleasingly hilarious slug/snail combo proving to be the standouts. Epic is a solid family film and has enough to warrant a visit to the cinema during the school break, but sadly it never lives up to its title.

The pretty standard stuff of elfish lore, where magical faerie folk protect the woods and the life enclosed inside. Led by the Queen Tara ( voiced in English-language version by Beyoncé Knowles) the minuscule forest inhabitants guard the essence of creation from the destructive appetite of the agents of blight - creatures called Boggans - and their malevolent leader, Mandrake (Christoph Waltz). These forces of good are led by the seasoned warrior Ronin (Colin Farrell), who together with his elven battalion mount hummingbird steeds. His special protégé is independent-minded brash Nod (Josh Hutcherson), who disregards structure and rules. However, each faerie Leafman must become a part of a bigger tree, in order for the forest to survive. Especially now, when a rare astronomical occurrence brings about the necessity to name a new queen, chosen through the use of a magical bud. This ceremony is disrupted by the onslaught of Mandrake's forces. Meanwhile a somewhat crazed and estranged Professor Bomba (Jason Sudeikis) seeks proof of little green forest men residing in the woods, much to the distraught of his only daughter Mary Katherine (or as she prefers to be known M.K.) (Amanda Seyfried), who moves in grieving after the death of her mother.

What can I say say? I love me some faeries and the magical allure of nature. Here "Epic" delivers with aplomb the visual feasts of an enchanted forest coupled with ages-old tales of combat between good and evil - or as portrayed here as a conflict between life and decay. The obvious flaw to be pointed out is the generic and predictable storyline, which delivers essentially what was to be expected, failing to really instill any sense of novelty. With some well-placed humour, thankfully low on the adult kind and more focused on family laughs, "Epic" does however deliver on its base promise: offering entertainment for both adults and children. Visually appeasing with some engaging story lines, apt for parents or simply for adults looking for a good time, are sure to be satisfied by the magical light-hearted tones, just perfect for disassociating yourselves from the mundanity of everyday life.

Some fault can also be found in a somewhat underwhelming formation of characters, mostly feeling like poorly fleshed out cardboard cutouts with only the touching relationship between father and daughter really hitting home. Some of the secondary characters are just poorly conceived comedic relief (like the slug and the snail), while the overall story seems somewhat overloaded given the running time. Especially the character of Nod seems to be a missed concept, as he fails to have enough structure to really develop any relationship with either Ronin or M.K., thus adding a certain sense of superfluousity to his role in the movie. Nonetheless, the underlying weaknesses fail to prove detrimental from family viewing, making it a rewatchable feast for the eyes and imagination, without ever truly hitting classic animation territory.

Whenever I saw this movie was on TV, I would just keep scrolling until one day I decided to DVR and watch it with my toddler. I actually really enjoyed it. Sure, there were some cheesy parts, but there was no over-hyped romance either. The story concluded with an older daughter reuniting and connecting with her dad - which is a great lesson for kids. The animation is not "wow" level like Tangled or Moana. The voice actors did a great job, and again, the story itself is really good.

This was not a perfect film by any means, but looking back from 2022, it got a worse rep than it deserves. A couple of voice actors were chosen more for their fame than their actual VA experience, and it made the error of making the "bad guys" overly one-note/evil for evil's sake (which very much messed with the inherent theme of balance, not *total defeat of one side*, in nature) but it was beautifully animated, had a lovely score, a pretty decent plot and main characters, and a good message.