I had been putting off watching Curious George for a while, but I'm not quite sure why. I love animation, I still love kids' entertainment in general, and I'm a huge Will Ferrell fan, but I think I had some fuzzy, distant memory that I didn't really care for the Curious George books (and maybe I had seen a couple of the early films when I was in high school) and I was vaguely aware of a negative buzz about this film. Well, putting it off was a mistake, because this is now easily one of my favorite films from 2006--everything about it is perfect, and I have to doubt my memory about previous Curious George works (I've already ordered one of the old books and films to check out).
The first thing you notice is how gorgeous and unusual the animation is. It's highly stylized to create a complete fantasy world, and seamlessly combines high-tech and low-tech, cartoonish caricature and realistic computer-aided design.
The plot, which is about Ted (Ferrell) venturing from a fantasy New York City to Africa to try to find a huge statue that would save the natural history museum he works for, may seem to be the weakest link, but that would come from misunderstanding the focus, which is instead on a number of abstract ideas and themes.
The primary idea is relatively unusual but very welcome--a message about the extreme importance of curiosity, creativity and play. This is merged with a very positive Zen-like "go with the flow"/"live mindfully in the moment" theme, which is partially achieved via a stream-of-consciousness flow of various subplots that frequently, very enjoyably dip into silliness and absurdities.
The main plot turns out to fit perfectly with this tone, as do the choices and performances of the voice actors, including Ferrell, Frank Welker, Eugene Levy, Dick Van Dyke, Drew Barrymore and David Cross. The Jack Johnson songs also set an unexpected but perfect mood for the film.
The first thing you notice is how gorgeous and unusual the animation is. It's highly stylized to create a complete fantasy world, and seamlessly combines high-tech and low-tech, cartoonish caricature and realistic computer-aided design.
The plot, which is about Ted (Ferrell) venturing from a fantasy New York City to Africa to try to find a huge statue that would save the natural history museum he works for, may seem to be the weakest link, but that would come from misunderstanding the focus, which is instead on a number of abstract ideas and themes.
The primary idea is relatively unusual but very welcome--a message about the extreme importance of curiosity, creativity and play. This is merged with a very positive Zen-like "go with the flow"/"live mindfully in the moment" theme, which is partially achieved via a stream-of-consciousness flow of various subplots that frequently, very enjoyably dip into silliness and absurdities.
The main plot turns out to fit perfectly with this tone, as do the choices and performances of the voice actors, including Ferrell, Frank Welker, Eugene Levy, Dick Van Dyke, Drew Barrymore and David Cross. The Jack Johnson songs also set an unexpected but perfect mood for the film.