La famille Willoughby

The vast majority of the jokes fall entirely flat and I think an insanely fast-paced movie with an hour-and-half runtime should have been way more entertaining. The major issue I have with this, though, is that it keeps shifting from one interesting storyline to another, and trying to convince us every time it that this would be the basis of the plot, before almost abandoning them and settling on a rather far less interesting and original plotline to serve its message, which is very problematic.

That said, I did enjoy this. It's so silly, for better or worse, and has a tinge of freshness, extremely eccentric and quirky characters (I think these parents are the creepiest I've seen in any movie) and breezy animation style similar to what Kris Pearn has done in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. But, to be honest, the intrusive meta-narrator cat is the true highlight of the movie.

(6/10)

The film isn't bad. The voice-acting, the unique characters, the dark humor, the animation, all make it quite an intriguing story right of the bat. Unfortunately, what starts out as a truly unique tale gives way to a horribly predictable and cliched ending. I truly thought this movie had promise, but once you realize where it's heading it's charm dwindles fast. What starts out as a daring piece of film ultimately loses out by playing it safe.

Based on the book of the same name by Lois Lowry, The Willoughbys appear to be a perfectly normal family from the outside. Two parents who greatly love each other and their four children. The problem: Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby never wanted children and have no extra love or tolerance for them. When these four kids grow up, they determine they would be better off living on their own. This is overall a fairly heavy kid's movie. It deals with child neglect and abuse, abandonment, and death. It is all shown in cartoonish manner, but if you or your kids have any history with any of the previously mention topics, this is not something I would consider a safe or fun watch. There's also some slightly creepy imagery, mostly coming from the young twins. For our full parent review with lessons, discussion questions and age suggestion check out the post on our blog- Down the Hobbit Hole Blog dot com. There are a lot of great lessons that can be discussed from this great adaption!

My 3yo, 5yo, and I adore this film. Several moments that made us laugh hysterically, most of those moments are kind of dark. So if you and your family like twisted humor, give this one a go!

A mix of 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' and 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Mary Poppins'? Darker and pretty disturbing than most family fare but still has its moments especially with its beautiful animation style and great voice acting.