Jonas et les Végétaloufs

I call this movie pretty good because, well, there have been better. Maybe VeggieTales should keep to cramming all the jokes into its standard thrity-minute length. However, this is still a movie the kids can enjoy and the parents can endure.

What surprised me the most was how accurate the story was to the actual Biblical story. While some things are added for a laugh, such as Ninevites slapping people with fish (showing the movie's Monty Python influence), some things were made so that it was more accurate. For examples, Jonah didn't want to go to Ninevah, he did decide to go to Tarshish instead, he did stay in the whale for three days and nights, and the vine episode at the end really involved a worm eating it away (although this worm is Khalil, the half catapillar hooked on motivational tapes.)

This VeggieTale is funny for family, but some may find it a bit dull compared to the thirty-minute ones of before. Still, it's worth the eight dollars.

P.S. If you get bored with the kiddie humor throughout, there's something more for the parents at the end: The Credits Song. After the pseudo-rock song, listen for the Pirates singing a song which has nothing to do with the movie and eventually ends with Pa Grape needing a Tums.

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie is a perfectly good-hearted, innocuous tool to help indoctrinate your children into the Christian faith. Of course, that's a little too brash, but it's an accurate summation of the animated film that features bright colors, grandscale animated settings, themes relevant to real life, and talking vegetables that simplify stories to make them accessible to your little ones.

This film seems to defy film criticism in the way that it already has its own route to its target audience. In addition, the audience who wants nothing to do with the film will find no challenge in trying to ignore it. Its target audience will find the film recommend to their young children at certain church events and religious gatherings and children will likely be fascinated by the franchise's aforementioned traits. Honestly, the VeggieTales shorts aren't the worst type of videos to show your children. However, if one can look past the colorful qualities for just a few moments, they will find nothing more than a surface-level, preachy, morality play that grows tiresome quickly and is thankfully punctuated by a fluffy song in between the dreary exposition of the Bible.

The film opens with Bob the Tomato driving Dad Asparagus and several young vegetable children to a concert. They wind up getting into a bit of a wreck and seek help at a seafood restaurant where they meet "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything." "The Pirates" decide to entertain the gang by telling them the story of Jonah, an ambitious prophet who makes a living preaching the word of God to different towns. One day, God himself implores Jonah to preach his word to the town of Nineveh, a dangerous, unholy village, to which Jonah refuses and decides to travel to Tarshish, the furthest you can get from Nineveh.

What unfolds is something of a road movie, with Jonah, who is an asparagus creature mind you, meeting random assortments of food, getting infamously swallowed by the whale, and learning such themes as compassion and mercy. Even the Veggie children learn of such themes, one meaning to respect your companions, the other meaning to give others second chances even if they don't deserve them. Such morals are the foundation of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie's existence and, in seventy-eight minutes, it does more than get its point across. It beats the morals and themes into the head of the viewer until you feel like telling everyone within your vicinity what you learned just to make the knowledge you gained seem more useful in some way.

Thank the lord there are at least catchy songs that turn up every now and then to snap you back into reality. One song in particular I enjoyed, and wish was actually a complete tune, is "Billy Joe McGuffrey," which the young Veggie children are singing in the car which winds up distracting Bob the Tomato as he drives in a rush to see the concert. The fast-paced tune, the frantic animation, and the excitement of everything happening at once made me feel like a young kid watching the VeggieTales on a Saturday morning. What followed were other catchy tunes that, thankfully, were complete songs, like "Message From the Lord" and "Jonah Was a Prophet," two songs I'll be damned if I could get out of my head.

I think that's value of watching something like Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie when you're either too old or an outsider of the target audience is the nostalgia factor. My generation was one that probably got the most use out of this franchise, and seeing these characters come back for one harmless film was something that, at the very least, was cheerful and amusing. On another note, not completely necessary. However, at a concise seventy-eight minutes and featuring a few catchy anthems, it's not a real task by any means.

Voiced by: Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki, Tim Hodge, Lisa Vischer, Dan Anderson, Shelby Vischer, Kristin Blegen, and Jim Poole. Directed by: Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki.

After countless 1/2 hour videos and even more countless silly songs, Veggie Tales hits the big screen with a whale of a tale (get it, WHALE of a tale? HA HA!) in JONAH: A VEGGIE TALES MOVIE. True to the Veggie theme, the entire cast is made completely of talking fruits and veggies (save for a camel, a whale, and an annoying little catapillar named Khalil). Although the movie tells the biblical story of Jonah, plenty of artistic lisence is taken to provide an upbeat, musical, and knee slapping experiance for the entire audiance. And when I mean the entire audiance, I mean everyone from little bitty kids to adults. You see, the creators of Veggie Tales (Big Idea) always try to throw in a few jokes every now and then that only adults will be able to enjoy, but unless you are actually paying attention to the film you might miss it.

Now I've said that artistic lisence is taken in telling the Jonah story; however, this does not mean that you are being told an entirely different story from the one in the bible. Overall, the story told in JONAH is basically the same as it is told in the Bible, so parents don't worry about showing this film to your kids...in fact, I encourage you to see this film with your kids. Have a good time with them. Know that you are seeing a quality film and a pretty faithful retelling of the Jonah story.

I just got back from the theatre from seeing this film. I took my 3 year old daughter who is an avid veggie fan to see the film. It was her first movie and Jonah was well worth being her inaugural film going experience. But this is far from just a kid's movie. One of the Chicago newspaper reviewers said that this was not a film for adults without children. This would be far from accurate. The movie certainly works for children, but those familiar with the Veggie franchise understand that much in the same way as Bugs Bunny, The Flintstones, and the Muppets that much of the humor is for the adults.

The movie works on a number of levels:

1) It tells a cohesive story for both the Veghead and the Veggie novice. Three of the main characters in the film are the Pirates who don't do anything who have a prominent part in the Veggie sing-a-long videos. However, there is nothing in the film that hinges on previous experience with Bob, Larry et al.

2) The movie entertains and instructs. Veggie Tales are educational. They are meant to be. This film is certainly no exception. The point of this story is to be compassionate and merciful. It makes that point by telling the story of a character who was neither and a God who was both. The story effectively segues between Veggie present and Bible past to let the modern day characters learn from the Biblical ones. I do not want to leave you with the impression that this film is merely a 90 minute flannel graph (Oooh flannel graph) for church going children. This is a fine and funny film for kids of all ages (Including 38). The animation is crisp. The musical numbers are fun and provocative.

3) Junior Asparagus is in a limited role. I am not certain if I am the only one who thinks this but Jr. Asparagus is the animated Wesley Crusher. (He actually does help save the ship in one episode.) I like Jr. in small doses and I was certainly able to swallow his part in this movie.

4) Larry the Cucumber is an integral part of the film. I am a big fan of Larry and I certainly think he is the funniest cucumber making movies today.

5) Silliness abounds. From the opening car trip sing-a-long to the closing credits, the high standard of Veggie insanity is maintained.

The film is certainly not Citizen Kane for the green grocer section. It could certainly be better in parts. Some of the teaching points are a little too pronounced. I also took umbrage with a legal proceeding taking place in a land where we are continually told that they did not know wrong from right. Also I write very silly songs and live near Lombard, IL where the movie was filmed and my phone never rang once. The film is certainly strong enough to overcome these minor flaws (but when Veggie 2 starts being created, I better get a call!)

Overall, Big Idea Productions should be very pleased with this movie and I think the film going public should be as well.

Jonah: A Veggie Tales movie should only be the kind of fodder to show to kids who have gotten too bored with the boring Bible readings in Sunday school. But somehow, based on a recommendation from a friend (who sometimes leans towards the strange and abstract anyway), I watched the Veggie Tales movie and it is actually much better than should ever be considered. A first impression I had looking at the Veggie-Tales, even from afar, was that it looked like the healthy, slightly (only slightly) more coherent version of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which I am still mixed on. But it's a little different than that, at least as far as the movie goes.

It is ultimately very silly and marketed more for a specific target group of kids- Christian kids looking for morals in the stories of the Old Testament, in this case being the tale of 2nd chances taken and missed and slipped up on with a prophet via a giant whaler- and yet there is an appeal as far as taking less than two pages of the bible and making it into a 75 minute movie. And it actually works at being unpretentious in its less detailed CG animation in this form. This isn't Pixar that one will be getting, but a lot of very clean-looking talking vegetables (where are their arms, minus the caterpillar guy, you might ask), and with a lot of extra-goofy songs; one of them is even a gospel tune, sung by angels whilst Jonah is trapped in the whale's belly. All I could think watching this scene was "wow, what the hell, no pun intended, is this?" That was much of the reaction I had to what went on, and I even got a few genuine surprises through the story as I wasn't totally familiar with it all.

If there is any crossover appeal, aside for the parents in watching their kids having fun enjoying the coolest little figures out of cartoon-like abstractions, with creatures bouncy and bright and even very cute (those peas are about as adorable as Miyazaki creations, if less textured). It's nothing very special in the recent boom of computer animated features, but it's probably a whole lot less cynical (and maybe less cruel and sophomoric) than a lot of those films, and it is in a very oddly formed way almost brilliant.