Blue Sky Studios is one of the respectable animation studios in Hollywood, which is probably jostling with DreamWorks Animation to cement its place in the minds of the audience as the one whose animated movie to look forward to when a Pixar movie is not in town. Probably, a bit cheeky thing to say; an executive of Blue Sky Studios would definitely never agree with this being the vision of the studio. But such is the case in the Hollywood animation market as of now. So with DreamWorks having already released The Croods earlier in the year, which though one of its rather average productions has raked enough money to start talks of a sequel, and Pixar's Monsters University about a month away, it was the turn of Blue Sky Studios (creators of the phenomenally successful Ice Age series, the charming Horton Hears a Who, and the surprisingly wonderful Rio) to demonstrate what it can do with its set of sketches and crayons and more.
Epic is based on a children's book, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, written by William Joyce, who himself is not a name unknown in the movie industry, having been a conceptual and art designer for Toy Story and A Bug's Life, besides being involved in quite a few other projects, like last year's Rise of the Guardians, in different capacities. The film opens with a young girl, Mary Katherine returning to meet her father, who lives in the forest, obsessed with his search for 'little men' who reside in the forest. At this time, the little creatures of the forest (who do exist) are out to witness their Queen elect a new heir which would keep the life and spirit of the forest intact. Safeguarding her are a group of soldiers called Leafmen, led by their leader Ronin. The ceremony does not go ahead as planned, with the Boggans, a group that thrives in rot and decay, led by Mandrake plan to eliminate the queen before the heir is selected. As should be expected, Mary Katherine inadvertently stumbles into this battle, finds herself shrunk to a fraction of her size and tasked with a role that could very well decide the existence of the forest itself. A typical 'good vs evil' battle is about to follow!
Epic starts off with some of the best opening lines I've heard in recent times, on how if you stand still in a forest long enough, you can hear the internal battle that is always raging within, a battle between life and decay. With the tone rightly set, Epic unfortunately fails to takes off to those heights again until maybe the last 30 minutes of the movie as the final battle scales up. The movie is set to be largely an adventure in a forest but never conveys the feel of a forest, apart from the presence of a rare deer. It remains limited in its tiny world of snails, slugs, toads and leafmen, eventually limiting the exhilaration that one was expected to feel from a movie that had a story which could have been grandiose. Epic tries to weave a lot of storylines together, beyond the 'good vs evil' battle, be it the difficult relationship between a daughter and her father, the relationship between a mentor and a renegade leafman, a budding love interest, a young bloke trying to figure out his life, a snail wishing to join the leafmen, and even a young creature dreaming of being a queen someday. And while each of these themes come across, none of them become the highlight of the movie, each emerging at its designated moment and then fizzling out. It is specially disappointing when you consider that Chris Wedge is the director of the film, who has previously been at the helm of things for 2002's Ice Age (though he was also responsible for the rather forgettable Robots).
But while Epic disappoints to reach the epic proportions a summer animated release is expected to, it still has enough moments to carry the audience through the around-100 minutes of running time. Some of the best comic scenes of the movie are provided by Mub (a slug) and Grug (a snail), voiced by Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd respectively, who have their own important roles to play in this adventure. The lead pairing of Mary Katherine and Nod, the leafman who does not want to be, are voiced by young starlets, Amanda Seyfried and Josh Hutcherson, who provide the right amount of youth and charm to their characters. The voices of the seasoned leaders of the Leafmen and Boggans are voiced by Colin Farrell and Christoph Waltz, who seemed like odd choices and even though Waltz has its own special way of lighting up the screen with his voice, he is not much of a modulator for an animated movie such as a Robbie Williams or a Jim Carrey. The other cast includes quite a number of popular singers, including Beyonce, Pitbull and the most interesting, Steven Tyler (who plays a caterpillar!), just to maybe catch up on fans of another world altogether.
Blue Sky Studios has Rio 2 slated for 2014 which we hope would keep the heart of the previous movie alive. And then one of the most beloved cartoon series, Peanuts, would be brought to life by the studio for a 2015 release. So there should be enough excitement inside the studio for the movies that are slated hereon. And even though Epic, which would be released in USA next weekend, is unlikely to generate earnings of the kind previously seen by the studio as Star Trek Into Darkness and Fast & Furious 6 likely to play party poopers, one does hope that the studio does not enter a downward moving trajectory and notches up the excitement level in its upcoming movies to get the thrill and fun of an Ice Age back!
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