It’s that classic tale of the little boy who’s the text-book walking-talking definition of a childhood neurotic who flicks between depressed and anxious whilst constantly becoming paralysed through his own over-analysis of any given situation. That’s right, it’s the perfect children’s movie about handling your thoughts, feelings and anxieties: it’s Inside Out oh wait, no it’s the other one: The Peanuts Movie, oh wait, they changed the name again for international audiences; it’s Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie!!
Yes, based on the classic ‘Peanuts’ tales that we all grew up on, the work of Charles M. Schulz has finally been realised on the big screen, providing you don’t include “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, “Why, Charlie Brown, Why?”, “Charlie Brown’s All Stars!”, “A Charlie Brown Valentine”, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and every other made for TV movie that came before it. However, in the big screen debut, featuring cutting edge 3D animation, we find Charlie Brown looking for love, whilst Snoopy embarks on a mission to finally defeat “The Red Barron.”
Look, as far as a movie goes, The Peanuts Movie is not pushing the narrative up to cinematic levels so don’t expect any large domes to be dropped on top of Hennepin County or for the Devil and Saddam Hussein to be attacking James Street Elementary School. What you do get though is a simple story essentially wrapped in a series of Charlie Brown’s greatest hits. They’re not doing anything meta, they’re not throwing in lots of adult innuendo to keep the parents entertained, they’re not doing a gritty-reinterpretation of the characters (let’s face it, can you get any grittier than Pig Pen?), but what they are doing is relying heavily on nostalgia - and in this case, there’s nothing wrong with that.
The animation itself is a good blend of 3D animation for the characters and the backdrops, whilst they use 2D sketches for the character’s mouths and some of their facial expressions which helps to keep the look and feel of Schulz original drawings. Occasionally they even bust out some of the original artwork to keep the visuals entertaining. But whilst staying true to the look of Charlie Brown, the characters remain true to who they have always been: Charlie Brown is still neurotic, Pig Pen is still filthy, Patty is still a tomboy, and Lucy is still expectant; at the end of the day these kids are all very complicated individuals but are still loveable and annoying in their own little ways.
The film really does do what it says on the box: it gives you a fun, feel-good time with characters that you grew up with. The story is simplistic and this keeps it true to the original comic book strips, so that works from a nostalgic-perspective for the parents, whilst if you’re a kid who knows nothing about Peanuts, then this is the perfect entry-level way of getting them interested in Charlie Brown and his assortment of supporting characters. If you go in expecting a Peanuts story and not a movie then you should not leave disappointed.
The Peanuts Movie, I mean, Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie gets Four out of Five feel-good Stars (so Snoopy’s name comes before Charlie Brown’s name even though it’s a Charlie Brown movie? Man this is Batman V Superman all over again!)
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