jmuntmootcourt

So I won't try to tell you that everybody is wrong and that this is a great movie. Watch the preview, and you'll see it's only a couple steps away from Power Rangers cheesiness.

However, a la crappy and corny kiddie stuff, kids do love it and there are a few funny asides and inside jokes for comic and movie fans throughout the script as well as with the casting. If you like Balls of Fury and the "Fill in the Blank...Movie" parodies (Epic Movie, Scary Movie, Superhero Movie, etc), you'll probably enjoy this one a little bit.

It's intentionally awful and corny, and obviously cheaply made, but it was worth the 4 bucks I paid for it to have a less serious superhero movie to serve as a bit of a gateway for my 3 little boys so that they can enjoy the better stuff with me when their attention spans grow a bit more! I gave this a 5 because it's tolerable and entertaining, even though it's pretty juvenile in its intentional silliness. Most of you will probably rather watch it after a few beers, but if you have kids that aren't ready for the Dark Knight and Watchmen yet, this is a decent kid-friendly compromise :)

The animation in this wasn't too bad, and the story wasn't the most original concept (surprisingly sentient characters, in this case flies, piggybacking on an existing human story or adventure), but still entertaining enough for a kiddie/family cartoon movie.

What made this awful was the voice acting by the kids that voiced the three main characters. All of the others were passable, but dialogue between those three made me feel like I was sitting through a table-reading in a second grade classroom.

I don't know if it was bad coaching or directing, or the kids themselves (who sounded just fine in the live-action features I've seen featuring them). Regardless, this was one prime example of a studio being so obsessed with finding a voice that was even mildly recognizable that they passed on quality.

That awkward line-reading made it almost seem as though they made the rest of the movie and then found kids to read the words that had already been animated, or as if they just plugged in dialogue from a read-through when they auditioned. All entertainment would cease as soon as the main characters started talking, and we just sat and waited impatiently for them to finish awkwardly pushing out their lines.

Ugh. Good job pushing this piece of crap instead of funding 3 or 4 other productions that may have been worth watching.

As some others have mentioned, it's shocking how few people have heard of, let alone seen, this film. I will admit that its social relevance would have likely had greater impact had it been made at least two decades earlier, but the discussion surrounding the more implicit racial tensions that exist in our supposedly politically correct modern society rather than the explicit ones that we are intended to believe are now solely a part of our sordid past may hold even more importance to some viewers.

Indeed, it is probable that many find the reversal of events depicted herein to be the result of overactive imaginations, delusions found only in cinematic representations of cross-racial interactions. However, having witnessed similar circumstances and having known a considerable number of people whose accounts are fascinatingly similar to the tendencies portrayed, I found it to be a very accurate study of our human need to find fault with another for whatever reason is most readily available to us.

The role reversal played out far better than in any movie that comes to mind as of this writing, and the acting and overall experience served to support the writer/director's vision perfectly.

I obviously gave this film ten stars, and would (and always do) recommend it to someone willing to have an open mind who chooses to further their understanding of underlying social structures in a more visceral sense.