I would first like to address the film's "frame rate" issues that I see in a lot of reviews. It's called an art style. It's an homage to stop motion animation, and for anyone complaining that it is "unwatchable", you clearly did not grow up watching any stop motion and only know the Blu-ray 60fps era. The frame rate is fine, as many things move at the full 24 (23.976), while the characters only move at the framerate necessary for the action they are doing. For slower movements, 12 frames is good, while for quick ones, they might bump it up to 18. Overall the jumpy style is fairly enjoyable, and isn't unique to this movie. It's seen in other movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, or The Lego Movie, so... if you don't enjoy it, don't blame the production team for making a mistake... it's intentional. If it's just not your taste just say so instead of making an un-educated review.
Now onto my own review.
Honestly, I thought this film was going to flop due to the low rating, however I was fairly impressed by the film.
- The art style was similar to The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021) with its quick swap in animation style (from 3D, to 2D elements, to drawing over the rendered footage at some points). It was quite appealing and something it seems Netflix animations are starting to take use of.
- The comedy was subpar, but they got me a few times with jokes (such as arithmetic jokes, those that have seen it or are about to watch it you'll know what I mean).
- Tons of references for all ages to get (and I mean all ages).
- It had a decent adventure plot. It lacked deep rooted meaning and powerful storytelling elements, but that's not needed to create a good, entertaining film, that's only useful when aiming to create one of the best films out there, and that wasn't their goal. They accomplished their goal of creating a fun family film, and they did it well.
- No outlying toilet humor (which is rare for kids movies these days). Just good clean humor.
- Overall a good redemption story for basically all of the characters, those who regret mistakes they wish they could change.
Now onto the possible cons.
Sometimes I realized how 2 dimensional the characters could be, other times I didn't notice or mind. This comes down to the genre and how deep you're looking into the film I feel. For instance, I feel the characters are similar to the Penguins of Madagascar, fitting one specific role and goal (such as leader, or comedic relief), which isn't such a bad thing. From an analytical perspective, this might be a con, but in this movie it isn't such a bad thing. Obviously some things were outrageous and silly, but that's because it's a family friendly movie, with the primary audience being kids. The first rule of a kids movie is that it can break the suspension of disbelief (a huge nono in movies geared towards adults), because kids have huge imaginations and love the silly, unreal moments (such as fireworks causing a dump truck to mimic bull riding, bouncing all over the place, from Paw Patrol: The Movie). It makes for a funny moment and is absolutely necessary for any successful kids movie.
Overall a well made family friendly animation. When reading reviews, remember that not everyone gives a review with the perspective of the intended audience. For some of these people, they're full grown adults ragging on this film because it's not the next Citizen Kane. If you and your family want an appropriate, fun, and exciting adventure movie to watch, this is one of those films.
