The plot: After encountering the jungle hero squad The
Champs, maniacal koala Igor (Keith Silverstein) is left stuck on a desert
island. In his absence, the Champs Natacha the tigress (Dorothy Fahn), Tony the
sloth (Kaiji Tang) and Goliath the rhino (Richard Epcar) decide to retire with
Natacha and Tony taking care of the penguin cub Maurice. However, years later,
it seems that Igor has returned to seek revenge. This time, it’s up to a now
grown-up Maurice the tiger penguin (Kirk Thornton) and his own hero team, The
Jungle Bunch, to stop Igor before he destroys the jungle.
Anyone with a passing familiarity with anime (particularly those who grew up on Digimon) should recognise at least a couple of the names
from the English dub of this film, and it seems that they’ve brought some of
their experience in the trade with them as the acting here isn’t that bad.
Thornton as our lead may be stuck with a rather bland character but he does
well enough at keeping the role within its boundaries as a once-removed legacy
superhero (more on that in a bit). Andre Gordon and Erin Fitzgerald as Gilbert and Batricia
(dammit, there goes my hair-pun trigger) are decent enough as members of the
titular group but their thinly-veiled romantic subplot is honestly a lot more
interesting… even if the film makes it a point to shy away from such things. Cam
Stance as Miguel and one of the frogs gives them enough breathing room to exist
as separate characters, while Chris Smith as the other frog ends up making a
nice double-act with Stance, resulting in a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
situation that, if the film took time out to focus on any one thing, might have made for a solid
contribution.
As for the older guard, the Champs, I have to admit that not
only are these characters far more interesting to watch than our leads, the
acting matches that effect. Fahn as the protective tiger Natacha works well with
the parental angle, which is rather fitting considering her best-known role is
as a mother in the original Digimon series, but also does well with the
pseudo-crimefighting angle of the story, more so than pretty much anyone else
here. Not for lack of trying, though: Tang as this almost Zen master sloth
makes for a solid parental figure alongside Fahn, and Epcar puts his expertise
to good use by filling the body of Goliath with enough earthiness and bass to
make it stick. And then there’s Silverstein as the villain, who does well
enough with the dialogue in how he lets the posh malice of the character ring
through, but he’s ultimately held back the same as everyone else because of
both the writing and the animation.
The animation here is done by French company TAT
Productions… and wow, is that a fitting name to see attached to a film that
indeed looks like tat. Not only that, it’s animation that looks bad in varying
different ways. For as many different types of animal that we are shown, they
are always presented looking like plastic or rubber; never flesh or fur. This
inconsistency is furthered by the character designs, which seemingly couldn’t
decide between the more realistic depiction of said animal or the more
traditional toonified version. For instance, it’s kind of bizarre seeing the
majority of the Jungle Bunch looking relatively realistic… and then you see
Batricia, who has big, full, human-looking eyes and weirdly defined fingers.
It’s as if her position as the only female in the main group (excluding Natacha
with the Champs) had to be emphasised by making her the most visually
appealing(?) member.
That’s a bit odd, but that’s still nothing compared to the
most glaring issue here: The lip sync. I get that this is a French production
and so it was likely animated with French voice actors in mind, but good God,
the lip-syncing here is among the worst I’ve ever seen in a
theatrically-released animated film. This makes
old-school kung-fu movies look like Miyazaki productions by comparison and it is never not distracting.
As for the writing at the heart of this whole thing, it’s
stuck between two embarrassingly separate worlds. On one hand, it delivers a
combination of incredibly weak jokes and slapstick humour that doesn’t so much
not register as much as I am struggling to figure out if they were even meant
to be funny to begin with. This isn’t helped by how a fair few of the longer
jokes rely solely on repetition to work, meaning that we’re stuck sitting
through a couple moments stretch on into infinity in the vain hope of a
chuckle. I get it, okay?! Maurice and Natacha act like each other! We don’t need an
extended sequence of them literally copying each other word-for-word to get
that across, nor the numerous others that follow!
On the other hand, between the film’s emphasis on both the
Jungle Bunch and the Champs that came before them and the general tone of the
production, this is basically Watchmen as filtered through nWave Pictures. It
treats the two groups of jungle protectors like superhero groups, complete with
rather pointless masks over their faces while they’re on the job (something
that is only barely explained
in-universe through a moment involving a mouse wearing a leaf bikini… because
of course it is), and even incorporates elements of the legacy superhero into
the equation through Natacha, Maurice and even Maurice’s son the goldfish. I’d
bring up how this family tree shouldn’t exist, but then again, this film plays
around with literal nature vs. nurture in potentially interesting ways.
I say “potentially” because, as a barely-concealed superhero
story, this is remarkably safe. Like, even for a kid’s version of this story,
this is tame. It sticks to the more surface-level aspects of the idea, namely
Natacha being overprotective about her adoptive son getting into her line of
work, and mainly just involves pissing contests between the two groups over who
should be doing what. This is bad enough, but also consider how the group that
isn’t even in the title ends up being the more compelling of the two,
especially the hedgehog member of the group who we barely get to see in all his
Greatest American Hero-cribbing glory. For a film borne out of a lengthy media
franchise to have a supporting cast that is this
much more interesting than our leads, maybe they should have gone back to the
drawing board on this one.
All in all, this should’ve stayed on TV. The voice acting
may be quite good, certainly more striking than I’m used to hearing from this
kind of low-end production, and there’s a couple interesting ideas floating
around but it’s near-impossible to vibe with either of those things. The
animation is tacky, the lip-sync for the English dub is insanely distracting,
and for a film involving a koala who throws mushroom bombs and wants to destroy
the jungle Lex Luthor in Superman Returns style, this is quite underwhelming
both as the family film on the surface and the superhero caper underneath.
No comments:
Post a Comment