Storm Crashers

Just watched this at the cinema. Wow, is it bad. There's a fart gag, or similar every few minutes. For some reason, in the last few scenes there's a mime for no other reason than cheap laughs. Nobody laughed. Seriously, maybe one in eight gags got a reaction from the audience despite being mostly children.

Animation was average at best. In particular the lead character, Alfonso, looked cheap as if they had purchased the model from some animation stock library.

The script and story lacked any sensibility. Some scenes just didn't make any sense at all. The imaginary characters could have played a major part in the movie, but were just some weird subplot. There are so many better kids movies out there.

If I had a nickel for everytime a movie based on Don Quixote was released in the 2020's... I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it'd be weird that it happened twice.

Overall, this movie is not pleasing to the eyes, having a CGI style with unflattering character designs; the fact that the 2D concept art in the credits is so lively only makes this a bigger sin. If it has one redeeming quality, it's the depiction of Spain's mountains, which look gorgeous.

Some odd creative decisions include having the Panzas be scientists, one of the henchmen having a weirdly swolen neck, three imaginary rabbits that have no impact in the plot and a jittery rate frame that makes movements look bizarre and unnatural.

The villain is a generic cliché and the story doesn't seem consistent with how ruthless he is given a scene I won't spoil. This movie has an environmentalist message, though it's also anti-gentrification so kudos I guess.

Overall a disjointed mess.

I created an IMDb about just so I could tell you how terrible this movie is.

Was it written by AI? Did it make sense in another language, then sent through google translate with no editing? My husband thought it was created by someone with ADHD. It led me to defend my fellow neurodivergent populace. We may divert our attention occasionally, but we wouldn't produce such poor quality. We just wouldn't have finished creating it.

This bizarre fever dream of a movie made no sense. My son fell asleep and wanted to watch it again the next day. Upon my second viewing, I became more angry about how bananas this movie was. It's not even funny bad. It's baffling that someone allocated funds for this film to be made.

Alfonso is Don Quixote's heir. He too has a wild imagination. He is excited to see that the coming storm is not a storm, but a monster. A storm can't be tamed but a monster can be defeated. He has his two friends, Pancho and Victoria, and various imaginary friends. They intend to stop the villagers from leaving the rain-soaked town and defeat the monster in turn. Carrasco is trying to sell homes to the villagers in his Carrascoland.

I like this for this European animation film. I like the Don Quixote connection and the animation style. I'm not sure if we should see the imaginary world right away. Alfonso should talk to no one and about nothing. Maybe the imaginary world would come alive with the climatic battle. This is interesting but not the best.

"Alfonso" is a distant relative of the legendary windmill-tilting "Don Quixote" and is an accident-prone young lad who doesn't always know how to differentiate between the real and imaginary! One thing they all agree on, though, is that the weather is turning increasingly violent and the storms - coupled with some offers for their property from the local nasty "Carrasco", are driving people out of their La Mancha village. Luckily, he and his three rabbits make friends with "Pancho" and "Victoria" and quickly they determine to find out just what's the connection between the property developer and these new sudden downpours. No, there's not much jeopardy here nor is it all very original, but it's still quite a good fun adventure film with plenty going on, some gadgets and loads of imagination for those of us who have/had friends that only we are clever enough to see. It probably doesn't need a cinema viewing, but there were young kids in the cinema when I saw it who laughed out loud and that's got to be a good thing as it focuses more on the characteristics of loyalty and friendship and less on endless whizzy CGI.