Blue Sky Studios, Director Chris Wedge and the animation team behind the Ice Age movies, Robots (2005) and Rio (2011), are at it again with this latest release, now called Epic (an upgrade from its original title, Leafmen). Unfortunately, it seems pretty much like a mixture of Avatar (2009) and Arrietty (2010). It is an animated adventure that’s seemingly tailor-made for family summer viewing. However, the problem with this latest effort is that as thoroughly delightful as the film’s visuals are, there’s just nothing very interesting about Epic’s tiny storyline or its efforts to create a real fantasy story that children can connect with. The kids who made up the majority of my screening audience seemed more fidgety than usual and worse yet, there was an obvious lack of frequent laugh-out-loud outbursts as one would expect of such an audience. This to me was very surprising considering these (Blue Sky Studios) were the same people who dreamed up the mega hit series, Ice Age. And despite an impressive list of celebrity talent attached to the project, you have the erroneously blurted tag-lines, poor adult-driven dialog and an idea-starved story feverishly vying to conceal its shortcomings. Epic simply seems to lack personality, a cohesive storyline and the aforementioned sense of kid friendly, easy-to-follow dialog. While it’s easy to get lost in the details of the fantastical world of the visuals here, one can’t help wishing the writers would’ve employed the same attention to detail as they did with the previously mentioned animated releases.

As mentioned, the bright shining point in this movie is the outstanding animation. The forest, hummingbirds, small warriors, other creatures are all shown meticulously and exceptionally. READ FULL EPIC FILM REVIEW >>

Tags: Epic