Strange Magic
Directed by: Gary Rydstrom
My Rating: 1 Star
Tomato Meter: 16%
MPAA Rating: PG (for some action and scary images)
Cast: Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood, Kristin Chenoweth, Maya Rudolph, Alfred Molina, Elijah Kelley, Peter Stormare
Well this was a mess.
Almost every moment of this movie was painful. Which was a shame because it could have been a halfway decent kids movie. But when you turn what is a quite nicely animated fairy story into a weird mashup of classic rock and top 40 hits, you’re going to hit some bumps in the road.
Correction. You’re going to veer off the road and over the nearest cliff.
Apparently this movie is based on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, but after watching it, I don’t think anyone on the production team has ever read the play. They must have been like, Shakespeare wrote about fairies, right? Let’s say this movie is based on the Bard. That’ll give it some credibility.
The main thing Strange Magic has going for it is some of the art and character design is really cool, but what animated movie isn’t these days?
Strange Magic is basically the story of a misunderstood “bad guy” finding love with the jilted heroine who can take care of herself. With classic rock and top 40’s mixed in at every turn (sung by the characters, musical style). Honestly, without the Glee Sing Along it would have been a sort of decent movie.
Just have your kids watch Thumbelina instead of paying to see this movie in theaters. If you have teenagers who want to see this movie, sit them down with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Or pretty much anything else.
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