La vallée des lanternes

The people all have mouths on the side of their faces which looks odd & you'll find yourself staring at characters' mouths. When they talk their mouths move on the side of their face. It looks bad. Their hair also looks odd & unnatural. The background looks like a piece of decoration with the characters placed & moved around on top of it. It's very remedial kindergarten level animation. I tried to understand the story but couldn't figure it out. This cartoon is centered around a grandmother who lives with her grown married daughter, son in law, & grandson. Grandmother goes out picking blue flowers that she uses to make a potion that temporarily stops the aching in her hands. After she picks blue flowers she hangs out in a back hut where she has a little laboratory set up. She pounds the flowers down, puts them into a beaker of water, & lights a fire underneath it to heat it up. As the potion heats up it explodes in a big poof of smoke. When the smoke clears she says she knows what to do differently next time for the next batch so it won't blow up & she starts all over again.

At first, having the hand drawn backgrounds with CGI people seemed a clash of visual styles, but it works.

This is good storytelling and the characters are likeable.

I'm glad I decided to see this.

There was so much potential, nicely drawn backgrounds and an ok score. But the awful animation, poor storyline and terrible acting (of suitably poor scripts) really let It down. A missed opportunity for a relevant impactful message for the young. I felt like I lived the 4 years repeated in the film and it's time I'll never get back.

I started to watch and a few times thought of stopping. The score was ok, the animation seemed a bit simple, and wasn't gripped initially but pleased I stuck with it. It really grew on me, such a lovely "simple" story and really warm. A joy to watch as the story unfolded. All you need is a good tale with characters that draw you in, and this is what it was. In such dark times it was a distraction and I really liked it.

At first the animation reminded me of computer games a decade ago and I was worried that this would be a difficult watch, but having got used to it I enjoyed the film much more than the opening 15 minutes might have suggested. I spent much of the time wondering from what country it originated and would not have guessed Canada. Everybody appears to have an offset mouth as if the entire population has suffered a stroke, and at first I assumed that the little boy Porter was a little girl. It's a highly moral tale about the importance of not looking back and making the most of time while you have it (and not gambling on pig races), but although charming in part, others aspects are really quite dark (including a dramatic fall from height) and I would caution parents not to watch it with very young children. The action takes place in an indeterminate land in a quasi-Medieval age but with certain modern conveniences (such as surgical neck braces). The musical score is actually somewhat repetitive, even annoying, and the whole film could benefit from being ten minutes shorter, with the main edits merited at the beginning. Thereafter, however, this film picks up momentum. I warmed to the characters and upped my score from an initial 3 or 4 to a solid 7.