Yeun as our lead donkey (ugh, we’ll get to my
problems with that alone in a moment) just kind of exists. Between the lukewarm
dialogue and equally lukewarm performance, this supposed lead character barely
has enough charisma to justify that label. Rodriguez and Levi as Mary and
Joseph respectively do well, although I seriously suspect that they are
actually in the middle of a far better movie that this one keeps interrupting.
Key is easily the most entertaining actor here; not only does he get some of
the film’s better jokes, but the guy’s comic timing outclasses pretty much
everyone else here. If he wasn’t one of the main three, this film would be in
serious trouble.
The rest of the cast is chock-full of recognisable names, same
for good (Gabriel Iglesias and Ving Rhames as two attack dogs work nicely),
some for bad (Tracy Morgan, Tyler Perry and
Oprah Winfrey are the Holy Trinity of annoyance as the Three Wise Men’s camels)
and some for outright depressing reasons (Christopher “Not exactly the best replacement for Kevin Spacey”
Plummer as King Herod is passable, given the little screen time he gets).
So, we’re dealing with a Biblical story being
retold from the perspective of talking animals… again. I am getting rather sick
of this approach to animated films, where it’s just the same story that a lot
of people have heard of but with talking animals to report on things from their
point of view. The reasons for this are two-fold: One, it so often feels like
the main story of the film is barging into the famous story of the film and the
two rarely mix well; two, what is being barged in on usually ends up being the
more compelling story. While the story of Mary and Joseph is easily one of the
most widely-known Biblical stories there is, I will admit to liking how it is
handled (for as little of it as we end up seeing).
For a start, it manages to
sidestep the usual squick associated with this kind of story involving a god
impregnating an underage girl through Mary and Joseph being pretty stable
characters overall. For another, it actually brings in Joseph’s own worries
concerning the new baby. Not because it technically isn’t his, but because
being tasked with helping to raise the literal Messiah is a tall order. Would
have been nicer if the film did anything with that, beyond just two scenes of
him expressing those doubts far removed from each other, but it’s at least
something. Specifically, something to distract from how utilitarian the plot
is.
The dialogue here is a seriously mixed bag. On
one hand, the comedy is actually pretty decent. It mainly revolves around puns
and literal stupid humour, and again most of the good stuff is given to
Keegan-Michael Key, but it actually got some laughs out of me (opening on “9
months B.C.” immediately got a chuckle out of me) and the jokes that didn’t work out weren’t so bad as to cause pain.
The dramatic dialogue, on the other hand? This film might have the single
plainest approach to drama that I’ve seen all year, mainly because of how
artificial pretty much every conflict is.
So, the Three Wise Men arrive to see
King Herod… but then tell him and that they’re not there for him but for the person who eventually
take his place as king. How were they expecting anything good to come out of
that? When Joseph questions his status as father to a demigod in Jesus, all two
times he does it, he ends up coming around within seconds and it’s as if it was
never a concern to begin with. When Bo finally gets a chance to join the royal
caravan, something that also happens
at least twice over the course of the film, he suddenly decides to go back to
Mary and Joseph for no other reason than the plot requires him to. These are some
of the bigger examples, but every time the film tries to push for conflict,
it’s done through means that are incredibly forced and unnatural. You can
almost see writer Carlos Kotkin looking for cracks in the story to try and
wedge drama into, only it rarely works because the force required is fairly
obvious.
That isn’t the only reason it doesn’t work, though, and this ties back into the
intersection of talking animals and religious drama. The original story is
effective because of how simple it is: The saviour of all mankind being born in
the most unlikely of places and welcomed into the world with open arms. Of
course, doing things simply isn’t in the cards for this film, as it is
extremely cluttered with how many subplots are at work. You’ve got Bo and Dave
wanting to join the royal caravan, Ruth the sheep getting over her problems
with her old flock, the two dogs and their silent, very Skyrim-looking
executioner looking for Mary, the Three Wise Men and their camels looking for Mary,
along with the actual story of the birth of Jesus. This film doesn’t even reach
90 minutes; it has no chance being able to juggle all of this and not lose the
point of the entire narrative.
And quite frankly, that’s exactly what happens
here. Rather than being a reaffirmation of the true meaning of Christmas and
showing compassion for the less fortunate, it’s too loud and crowded and
weirdly animated (yeah, didn’t get into that earlier but the CGI is this
strange midway point between realistic and cartoonishly bouncy. It’s quite
distracting.) for any of that to sink in. From studios like The Jim Henson
Company and Sony Pictures Animation (we’ll just ignore what else they released this year) to director
Timothy Reckart who was the head animator for Anomalisa to its relatively
high-profile cast, this should have been better.
All in all, it might be a decent distraction for kids but it
won’t have much to offer anyone else. The acting is mixed, with only
Keegan-Michael Key giving a noteworthy performance, the animation is mostly
off-putting, the writing suffocates real theological weight with animated
animal butts and the sense that this is a film based on a story from the Bible
is pretty much forgotten. There’s been worse family films this year,
particularly by Sony Pictures Animation, but this is still quite dull when all
is said and done.
No comments:
Post a Comment