Pico et Columbus - Le voyage magique

Ahhh, bad animated films. We love these kinds of flicks don't we? We love moaning about the annoying characters that we want to bash their brains out, we laugh at the rushed and cheap animation and we cringe at the crappy songs that won't make any of the Disney songwriters cry in their sleep.

Now with this little beauty here called The Magic Voyage, you have to take it with a magic pinch of salt.

You can either call it a horrible horrible film that has no redeeming qualities and is just annoying to watch, or you can go the extra mile and call it a bad film but still unbelievably funny to watch.

Guess which path I'm taking Sherlocks? Yep, that's right, the second path because I found the Magic Voyage to be a hysterical piece of animated trash from our good ol friends in Germany.

Now I can sort of see what they were going for here, they wanted to give Disney a good run for their money and try to make an animated film. They tried but they more or less failed on all accounts.

The animation here is unbelievably bad, like Paddy The Pelican levels of awfulness. This kind of thing would feel more right at home on 70's Saturday Morning TV with some other "classics" like all those toons focusing on those popular stars.

Oh yes you're also in for a treat, because like it's little brother Felix The Cat, half of the dialogue doesn't even match with the lips. Great fun for all, you could take a shot each time they make this error.

Voice acting is pretty bad, not like Felix though but still bad nonetheless. Look Mr DeLuise, I love you man but you just wasn't right for the role of Christopher Columbus and the less said about that wood character thingy the better.

Are you a person who loves history? Too bad, better look elsewhere because this is also packed with tons of historical accuracy, it goes completely off the walls and makes even Pocahontas look even more accurate by comparison.

Oh yes and this film doesn't know when to take a quick breathe just like Felix, so it's pretty loud half the time. I'm pretty sure, if this film was a real person, it would be dead in under 10 minutes or so.

Magic Voyage was hysterically bad and incredibly funny to watch. It's basically a trainwreck that is so big you can't help but just watch it anyway. A gigantic failure for all involved and pushes animation back 80 million years. (Hold on, did animation even exist back then? Beats me.) Right, I'm off to make my own historically inaccurate animated film. Byyyeeee.

Remember Christopher Columbus's voyage and how he found America? Do you remember Christopher's traveling companion Pico the wood worm? I don't either. Do you remember how Columbus's worst enemy was a swarm of evil bees who held some sort of bug princess captive? Neither do I. In fact, you can't even say this movie has any fact to it. True there was a man named Christopher Columbus, but that's all they got right (and the names of the ships), everything else just makes no sense. Whoever animated this must've been high, and whoever wrote it must've been mentally retarded.

Pico the woodworm (voiced by Corey Feldman) somehow becomes best friends with Christopher Columbus (voiced by Dom Deluise) and they travel off to prove the world isn't flat. Pico meets Marylin the fairy princess of the moon sprite (Whatever the heck that is), and keeps fantasizing about her. Columbus and his crew of 3 or 4 men, 3 rats and 1 woodworm set out and find America in about 2 days time, just like it happened in real life. The climax involves Columbus fighting a swarm of bees and trying to take gold from what looks like an Aztec or Mayan temple.

This movie should have never been made! What was the point of it? It makes no sense whatsoever. Columbus and a woodworm travel to America, okay, I buy that. They try to tell the tale, but also add an animated comic relief for the kiddies, but Pico isn't even a comic relief, he's the main character. Columbus is more like the comic relief and I've seen shots to the head that are funnier than Columbus's non stop ranting. The animation is freaking horrible! Half the time when a character talks their mouth isn't even moving. The swarm of bees that shouldn't have even been in the movie to begin with looked like a big swarm of feces, which is how I can also sum up the film...it's nothing but a big pile of feces. The character designs are also awful, with everyone having a big nose, including Pico who's nose looks like one of those Bugle potato chips. The dialogue seems ad libbed, as does the entire script. I know this movie was originally made in German, but seriously, couldn't they at least try to match the mouths instead of ad libbing bad dialogue the entire movie. Unfortunately, this is also a musical, with some really awful songs and even worse singing. The climax is anti-climactic and only lasts for about 2 minutes, never putting the characters in harms way, though it would've been much more enjoyable to see the whole lot of them killed.

If you couldn't figure it out, I hate this movie. It's the most awful animated film I've ever seen, and I've seen some real stinkers. This might be one of the worst movies ever made. It has no real plot and the animation is horrid. Avoid it at all costs!

My rating: BOMB/****. 80 mins. Rated G.

This is one of those films where you just don't have any idea why it was even made. Why in the world would Germans feel drawn to a story featuring Christopher Columbus, a wood worm, a firefly princess and some sort of horribly, horribly animated swarm something-or-other? I just keep asking myself over and over again, "Why?"

The overall animation doesn't even come close to looking like anything out of the 1990's. It is very simplistic, drab and amateur-looking. Supposedly stationary objects jiggle back and forth and the mouths of characters don't match the words being spoken way too many times.

Forget about all of the important ingredients necessary to make a decent animated film. Dom DeLuise and Corey Feldman as your main voice talent? Ugh. Sheesh...and the songs in the film! You will thank me for the following advice: Do not keep any sharp objects lying around while watching this film! If you happen to find a pencil before you find the "Mute" button on the remote, well, you will probably be tempted to use it to puncture your eardrums. The sole good song is the one by Al Jarreau over the closing credits.

I don't even know where to begin as far as the story goes. Something about a wood worm who walks and talks and wears clothes. He has a carrot for a nose and tells Christopher Columbus that the world is actually round and not flat or square. The wood worm, named Pico, snags a girlfriend but she is later kidnapped by a swarm creature. Columbus convinces the Queen to give him three ships so he can sail to Asia and Pico tags along to try and find his girlfriend. They end up landing on a tropical island and find a fortune in gold. Is any of this sounding interesting to you?

This is one of those many films where you just know that the story behind the development of it is infinitely more interesting than the film itself. I don't know why the Germans didn't make something that they could relate to better. They tried to emulate an American animated film but completely and utterly failed. Even early episodes of "The Smurfs" are filled with more complex storytelling and cutting edge animation than this disaster. Bon Voyage! 1/10

This could be, by far, the worst animated foreign film ever made. Surely it's the worst I've ever seen in a long time.

Why would the Germans try to tell a story about Christopher Columbus? This is insulting to history, insulting to children's intelligence, and, worst of all, insulting to Columbus and his crewmates. This is actually so bad I can't even put it in paragraphs. How bad is this movie? How is it misguided? How is it so insulting to history? Here's a quick checklist:

01. A Talking Bookworm Named Pico (Corey Feldman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

02. A Princess Firefly Named Marilyn (Irene Cara, Fame)

03. An Evil "Swarm-Lord"

04. Pico Telling Christopher Columbus (Dom DeLuise, The Secret of NIMH) That the World Is Flat When In Reality Columbus Figured It Out Himself

05. Columbus Going To The King & Queen To Tell Them His/Pico's Idea Of Finding The New World When In Real Life It Was The King & Queen Who Told Columbus To Find the New World

06.Stereotypical Crewmates

07. The Most Corny-as-Hell Dream Sequence Where Columbus Pulls A Spyglass Out of His Penis

08. The Crewmates Trying To Hang Columbus When In Reality It Never Happened

09. Talking Beavers Helping Pico and Marilyn Defeat the Swarm-Lord

10. Columbus Using A Sock-Puppet To Get The Long-Found Gold. Again, It Never Happened.

11. Stereotypical Natives In The New World

12. The Most Sugar-Coated Ending In Which the Natives Honor Columbus, Columbus, Pico and Marilyn All Heading Home Alive and Safe and Columbus Talking About How The World Will Improve Within the Next 2,000 Years. There's Not Even An Epilogue That Tells How Several Of Columbus's Crewmates Were Killed By the Natives.

See how bad this movie is? Not only that, it rips off Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth", as well as Don Bluth movies like "The Secret of NIMH", "All Dogs Go to Heaven" and "A Troll In Central Park" (and I thought THAT movie was bad.). The only saving graces of this movie are Dom DeLuise and Irene Cara. Other than that, it's loud, rude, and TOTALLY disrespectful to history.

** out of **********

My Grandma has a friend who let me have a free box of mostly animated VHS tapes, and so I selected a bunch and this one was one of them.

It looked cute, and I like the idea of an animated feature about Columbus. However, I put it on for about 2 minutes and heard all of this dull narration about how he sailed the ocean blue and I thought-okay, I have no interest. Then I took it out, rewound it in my rewinder, and set it aside to get rid of.

Should I be able to review a movie I saw for only 2 minutes? Sure-Roger Ebert reviewed Johnathan Livingston Seagull after seeing 45 minutes, and he saw only 8 minutes of True Loved.

The animation is crummy, the narration was dull, and there are superior movies for children to see. There, that summarizes my thoughts.

This probably earns 0 stars from what I saw, but I will be nice and actually give it my above 1.

The average rating here is a 3.4/10-and the quality of just the opening alone really shows its justification. The other reviews should show something too.

PS, I was looking at a list of the worst animated movies ever made and this popped up. I had completely forgotten of it's existence until now. I have not thought about it for a couple of years.