Der Elefant des Magiers

Started off great w a good premise, captivating animation.

... then the plot absurdities start to plonk in one by one until there's such a deluge of nonsense that all sense of connection to the plot or the characters are gone.

Yet AGAIN another animation which throws all its budget on the visual graphics and a tiny tiny pittance on good writers who can flesh out a viable plot with characters that can hold the viewers interest.

But here we have rubbish plot, rubbish dialogue, characters which held early promise all plonked down the tunnel of showy absurdity.

Good visual animation but the nonsense plotting is for animation trash heap.

A young orphan "Peter" has been brought up by a disciplinarian former-soldier, but longs to find his long-lost sister from whom he was parted at the height of war. Out for the daily shopping (stale bread and fish), he espies a tent in which a fortune teller offers to tell his future. It seems that he might be reconciled with his sibling - but for that he has to follow the elephant, and there hasn't been one in his town for an age. Meantime, a rather hapless magician is trying to entertain the great and the good in the town's theatre when - low and behold - he conjures up... The king arrives in the town to inspect this magically contrived and noisy pachyderm and decrees that if "Peter" can carry out three impossible tasks, he can keep it! The three impossible tasks are quite entertaining, as is the whole film. The story is all a little predictable and it does stray into sentimentality just a bit too often, but it's an engaging family drama with some fun characters and colourful scenarios. Maybe a bit too wordy and probably fifteen minutes too long - it takes an age to get going - it is still a gently entertaining watch that imbues the lead character with some imagination and legerdemain and one that I quite enjoyed on a big screen.

First off, the plot is predictable, and you can guess where the tale is headed, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing because this film is meant to make you feel happy and heartfelt. That caused us to marvel and enjoy the journey, and there were a number of things that contributed to my enjoyment of the journey. First, the directing was excellent; I was astounded by how, in some essential scenes, the camera switched to the character's point of view, giving me the impression that I was a part of the setting they were in. Second, the sound effects and visuals did a lot to make me enjoy the film; for example,the stunning sound effects inspired awe and wonder and were so calming and uplifting that it seemed as though the characters were in the room because of how expressive and lifelike their voices sounded. The character movements were fluent and natural, giving a lifelike experience, and the character animation was so lifelike and detailed that it felt like they were real. The brilliant and fascinating colors of the film made for an exciting and immersive experience. The unpleasant aspects of the movie are kind of concealed, so there aren't many of them. I believe they have discovered the recipe for the ideal animated feature.

Set in the once magical city of Baltese, the city has lost its magic and wonder following a great war with the city now in the shadow of eternally unmoving clouds. A young boy named Peter (Noah Jupe) is an orphan from the war who is raised by an old soldier Vilna Lutz (Mandy Patinkin) who found him. When Peter comes across a Fortune Teller (Natasia Demetriou) who offers him a question for a coin, she tells Peter that his presumably dead sister is in fact alive and he will find her by following an elephant. In another part of the city, a clumsy Magician (Benedict Wong) tries to inspire a jaded crowd with his magic only to inadvertently cause an elephant to fall from the sky an cripple wealthy Dowager Madam LaVaughn (Miranda Richardson). Upon learning of the elephant, Peter sees this as a sign that the fortune was true and enlists the help of his neighbor Leo Matieene (Brian Tyree Henry) to use his position as Captain of the Guards to get him an audiences with The Countess (Kirby Lauryen Dockery), who holds the elephant in her home, so he can see about getting the elephant. The funloving King (Asaif Mandvi) hears of the elephant decides to visit Baltese to see and bears witness to Peter calling down the elephant when she is thrown into a state distress. Peter pleads his case for the elephant and the king agrees to give it to him provided he can complete three impossible tasks.

The Magician's Elephant is an adaptation of the 2009 illustrated children's novel written by Kate DiCamillo and illustrated by Yoko Tanaka. 20th Century Fox acquired the rights to the novel in 2009 with Martin Hynes adapting the novel and produced by Julia Pistor, but the project languished in development hell and like many other in-development projects at Fox fell victim to the Disney-Fox merger. In 2020, Pistor was able to shop the project elsewhere and took it to Netflix who acquired the rights and Hynes' screenplay and partnered with Animal Logic to produce the animation. Now arriving on Netflix I'm pleased to say The Magician's Elephant is a charming animated feature that captures the charm of its story.

The movie features a great ensemble cast with Noah Jupe of the A Quiet Place films very strong as our lead Peter, and the supporting cast is made up of reliable actors giving strong performances such as Mandy Patinkin, Miranda Richardson, Benedict Wong, Aasif Mandvi, and Brian Tyree Henry providing reliable and likable voice talents to the ensemble. While I haven't read the book the film is based on, Martin Hynes' screenplay is very charming and largely avoids the pitfalls of many modern day animated fantasy films that feel the need to "contemporize" their dialogue in ways that take you out of the story. It reminded me a bit of how The Sea Beast handled its dialogue and characters to a degree. Another point that really stuck out for me was how there's no villain in the film and while there is conflict it feels fairly organic while still fitting within the confines of fairy tale tropes without being overly glib about them as Shrek and its various imitators have, though we still do have some amusing exchanges such as "you've ruined a perfectly good killing machine" that made me smile, and Mandy Patinkin gets some strong comedic moments intermixed with the dramatic ones.

There are some sticking points to the movie. While the animation is good and did grow on me, there was something about the character models that felt a little off at first. The movie is animated by Animal Logic a noted and reliable Australian visual effects house, and while they have worked on animated films such as Happy Feet, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, and DC's League of Super-Pets, they don't typically animate films with prominent human characters and you can kind of tell with this film as the Elephant animated fantastically while the humans have some issues in how certain elements of their faces looked (primarily in the eyes and mouth) and I also felt the texturing on the models was a little off to a degree, but it was something I noticed less and less as the movie went on.

I rather liked The Magician's Elephant. While the animation does have some rough spots to it, I did like the story and characters and feel it's a charming movie with decent showcase of Animal Logic's prowess as an animation house outside movies with animal protagonists (even if their human character models could use some more polish).

Another animation film gone straight to streaming, which is such a shame.

The film is very beautiful visually, showing us different and unique places, and in a style that is very pleasing.

The story is interesting, although perhaps not as daring as other recent animated films and at times felt a little too simple. Some themes needed more depth, but the plot is entertaining. As much as it was not as creatively original as say the Spider-man Spider-Verse films, it was a pleasant experience and left an extremely positive balance.

I did enjoy that the moral lesson is very well crafted, always reminding us how we must never lose hope, regardless of the challenge.