Blue Sky Studios, although not the best animation studio, is a highly under-appreciated company. While none of their movies are 'amazing', I do find all of them to be really entertaining and enjoyable, rather it be Ice Age, Rio, Horton Hears A Who and Epic. But then came this movie, which not only is easily their best movie yet, but possibly joins the ranks of animated classics of Pixar and Disney. This is not because of the fact Peanuts is a enormous part of my childhood,but also the fact this movie can stand on it's own for many reasons.
To Start off, let's talk about the animation. Unlike Blue Sky's previous works, this went from 'creative' to 'innovative'. Unlike most other CGI movies, this movie is actually 2.5D animated, as in the animation is done in CGI, but treated like hand-drawn/flash animation. The backgrounds and objects are completely 3D, but the characters are 2D, which is absolutely genius for the movie's use of the Shlutz's art-style. Let's face it, if the characters were completely 3D, the animation would have looked lackluster. But keeping them flat is definitely the advantage here. For the movements, they would make it intentionally choppy in order to to be authentic to the animated low-budgeted specials. But the one element that makes the animation stand out is the use of hand-drawn lines. Usually it happens whenever a character is imagining something or when the movie pays homage to the comic strips, hence why you would often see words pop up on screen from time to time.
Now on to the most important part, the writing. Unlike most other animated movies nowadays that have to have some sense of adventure or huge conflict, this movie decides to take a step back and instead decided to have the classic 'life of' story, where it has the ever so famous plot of Charlie Brown trying to impress Heather Fold (The Little Red-Haired Girl) whereas his dog, Snoopy, is having his own adventures of fighting the Red Baron in World War 1. What makes the writing so spectacular is not just how this is refreshing from the many last animated features, but how admirably faithful and loyal to the classic specials. It does use every trope found in previous Peanuts specials (Mostly A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Life is A Circus Charlie Brown, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Happy New Year Charlie Brown), but considering we haven't has a Peanuts animation in 4 years since 2011, I don't really mind, since they not only do new things with those tropes, but also fix the flaws of those stories. What's even better is how the movie also does do a few new things that the animated specials don't do, such as giving obscure characters more speaking lines and screen time for example. As for the humor, it's great throughout the entire movie, almost every second is trying to throw a physical joke at you and the majority of them hit bulls-eye. And if your wondering, no, this movies doesn't have pop-culture references, so thankfully, this movie will age finely.
The biggest job that this movie has to accomplish is to get all the characters correctly, and thankfully, its great to see them back on the big screen since way back in 1984. You got Charlie Brown, whom is the determined klutz with the heart of gold, Snoopy and Woodstock as the comic reliefs whom also act as mentors to Charlie Brown, Sally as the sweet yet crazy sibling, Linus as the helpful best friend, Lucy as the obnoxious loud-mouth, Peppermint Patty as the tomboy, Marcie as the intelligent one whom hangs out with Peppermint Patty, Schorder as the elegant piano player, Heather and Fifi as the love interests whom don't get much screen-time, and Violet, Patty, Frieda, Pigpen and Shermy as the background characters whom sometimes get their time to shine. Not only all of these characters are the way we all remember them and how they all serve a purpose in the story, but the movie isn't afraid to show them some new sides we don't usually see. We see how Lucy does have a soft side for Charlie Brown despite how she acts against him, Snoopy does have more of a heart to Charlie Brown than he did in the comics and specials, and more.
I know Blue Sky may not have been impressive for the last couple of years (Not to mention their worst movie is coming right after this), but this movie was able to prove that Blue Sky can make fine work on the levels of the 90's Disney and Pixar's work. While this movie isn't big, but it's charming simplicity and loyalty to the comics and specials is what makes the movie grand. If you ever been a fan of the Peanuts series, or someone who wants to see something that's simple but amazing, this is a high recommendation, who knows, you might find some surprises in this movie, just like good old Charlie Brown!
To Start off, let's talk about the animation. Unlike Blue Sky's previous works, this went from 'creative' to 'innovative'. Unlike most other CGI movies, this movie is actually 2.5D animated, as in the animation is done in CGI, but treated like hand-drawn/flash animation. The backgrounds and objects are completely 3D, but the characters are 2D, which is absolutely genius for the movie's use of the Shlutz's art-style. Let's face it, if the characters were completely 3D, the animation would have looked lackluster. But keeping them flat is definitely the advantage here. For the movements, they would make it intentionally choppy in order to to be authentic to the animated low-budgeted specials. But the one element that makes the animation stand out is the use of hand-drawn lines. Usually it happens whenever a character is imagining something or when the movie pays homage to the comic strips, hence why you would often see words pop up on screen from time to time.
Now on to the most important part, the writing. Unlike most other animated movies nowadays that have to have some sense of adventure or huge conflict, this movie decides to take a step back and instead decided to have the classic 'life of' story, where it has the ever so famous plot of Charlie Brown trying to impress Heather Fold (The Little Red-Haired Girl) whereas his dog, Snoopy, is having his own adventures of fighting the Red Baron in World War 1. What makes the writing so spectacular is not just how this is refreshing from the many last animated features, but how admirably faithful and loyal to the classic specials. It does use every trope found in previous Peanuts specials (Mostly A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Life is A Circus Charlie Brown, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Happy New Year Charlie Brown), but considering we haven't has a Peanuts animation in 4 years since 2011, I don't really mind, since they not only do new things with those tropes, but also fix the flaws of those stories. What's even better is how the movie also does do a few new things that the animated specials don't do, such as giving obscure characters more speaking lines and screen time for example. As for the humor, it's great throughout the entire movie, almost every second is trying to throw a physical joke at you and the majority of them hit bulls-eye. And if your wondering, no, this movies doesn't have pop-culture references, so thankfully, this movie will age finely.
The biggest job that this movie has to accomplish is to get all the characters correctly, and thankfully, its great to see them back on the big screen since way back in 1984. You got Charlie Brown, whom is the determined klutz with the heart of gold, Snoopy and Woodstock as the comic reliefs whom also act as mentors to Charlie Brown, Sally as the sweet yet crazy sibling, Linus as the helpful best friend, Lucy as the obnoxious loud-mouth, Peppermint Patty as the tomboy, Marcie as the intelligent one whom hangs out with Peppermint Patty, Schorder as the elegant piano player, Heather and Fifi as the love interests whom don't get much screen-time, and Violet, Patty, Frieda, Pigpen and Shermy as the background characters whom sometimes get their time to shine. Not only all of these characters are the way we all remember them and how they all serve a purpose in the story, but the movie isn't afraid to show them some new sides we don't usually see. We see how Lucy does have a soft side for Charlie Brown despite how she acts against him, Snoopy does have more of a heart to Charlie Brown than he did in the comics and specials, and more.
I know Blue Sky may not have been impressive for the last couple of years (Not to mention their worst movie is coming right after this), but this movie was able to prove that Blue Sky can make fine work on the levels of the 90's Disney and Pixar's work. While this movie isn't big, but it's charming simplicity and loyalty to the comics and specials is what makes the movie grand. If you ever been a fan of the Peanuts series, or someone who wants to see something that's simple but amazing, this is a high recommendation, who knows, you might find some surprises in this movie, just like good old Charlie Brown!
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