Sing (2017)

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I am a sucker for an animated film, especially when it involves singing animals. I was very excited to catch this film and write a bit of a different review as this one is a lot harder to criticise mostly due to the fact that I am an adult going out to watch a film largely aimed at kids. I didn’t have many expectations going into seeing this film, and I guess you could say it didn’t disappoint. 

The story behind this film is largely about 1 character called Buster Moon, a lovely happy, Koala full of aspiration who decided at the age of 6 he wanted to own his own theatre, and put on the greatest shows for all to witness. He and his father did not have much money so his father worked his little Koala butt off washing cars to save the money so Buster to eventually buy his own theatre and fulfil his dreams. We learn very early on in this film that his productions are a bust (ha! I’m sorry), and he is really not doing great financially and is receiving constant calls from Judith at the bank ordering him to sort his accounts. In attempt to try and boost his business he has a great idea about writing, and casting for a singing competition with a prize of $1000. His 200 or so year old iguana assistant however, types this up wrong and he is offering $100,000 as a prize, meaning he gets tonnes of animals wanting to audition and later on, as is to be expected this causes him a bunch of different problems, and although the production is ruined due to a literal disaster, it all managed to end happily, as kids films do. The film starts off by giving us a quick insight into the lives of the additional main characters and the struggles these characters are going through. For example one is a mother with 25 kids that all seem to be toddlers (realistic, right?), one is very shy, another wants to be a singer but their dad has other plans for him… like robbing banks, so you basically get introduced to all these main characters and hear their little voice a bit before we get into the main bulk of the movie.

This cast of Sing consisits of a lot of big names, such as Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey and Seth McFarlane. It is quite obviously hard to rate actors in an animated performance, so I guess all I can say is their voices fitted wonderfully? I don’t know, they suited the characters they were given, like higher pitched voices for a female porcupine, a massive gangsta gorilla was given a deep rough cockney accent. It all worked, you get the drift. 

The animation in this movie was pretty beautiful. This is the thing I love about animated movies, not only are they usually just easy, fun films to watch, they are very artistic productions. Animated movies have (quite obviously) developed and improved greatly over the past… well even 5 years! Sing is noticeably so detailed, to the point of there being a restaurant scene with TONNES of little squid in the background and they were all doing their own little thing, and all had their own little faces and so on. Similarly, there is a scene (spoiler alert) when the characters are trying to escape the theatre and it is all crashing down around them, and water is their main enemy here, everything is slowly being destroyed, and animals are fighting for their lives. It looks dramatic and makes you feel scared for them, and upset for Buster. This is I really began to appreciate the work put in to this film by its creators.

Throughout the film there are a bunch of jokes made for both adults and children, yet I think this really depends what kind of a sense of humour you have. I don’t think a German pig in a sparkly leotard is for everyone. However, saying that, you get the impression that this kind of humour is going to be displayed from even the trailer, which heavily makes reference to character Gunter. 

                                        

My overall rating for this is going to be a 5.5/10. It was an enjoyable film and I probably would watch it again, but it did get slow in parts, however the thing that salvaged the great bits was the animation of the film. If the animation wasn’t so good it probably wouldn’t have carried on flowing as nicely as it did. The story was pretty solid as far as an animated kids film goes, and the characters were loveable and adorable, I just don’t think I can easily rate is as high as a Pixar Movie such as Inside Out, as a more recent example, because oh hell, that as a deep film.
I recommend giving it a watch though, and if you’ve got any little ones I’m sure they’ll like it too. I mean I giggled, and was in adoration of the silliness involved in this film, along with the drama, light comedy and the pretty nice selection of pop songs used throughout the film.

I mean, any film which includes Carly Rae-Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe as a huge part of the soundtrack is a winner for me.