The Peanuts Movie - It's a Swing and a Miss, Charlie Brown

[happy_turtle]

I'm surprised at the dog-piling here, I went to see a preview of this movie last night and agree with pretty much every other reviewer out there. It's a very good, charming and well thought out price. The Snoopy bits whilst fun, felt like the tacked on parts and the main film came about around Charlie Brown and his crush. Filled with nostalgia and some very good writing on the creators parts I can genuinely recommend this film to anyone who remembers Peanuts or is taking their kids along.

If this is a "swing and a miss, Charlie Brown" then these Escapist reviews are on strike two after the god awful Spectre one.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Really?!
Nobody is going to speak up? I'm the one who's gonna have to say it?

Sigh...alright.

GOOD GRIEF!!

Surely you mean AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!

Better luck next time Chuck.

 

[PhantomEcho]

You know, loathe as I am to admit it, at least there was one thing I could dependably rely on when it came to movie reviews around here. They were entertaining, and I always came away knowing roughly how I would feel about the movie for myself. I miss that. These new reviews just leave me baffled.

Literally the ONLY negative point that can be made about this movie is that it's an extremely faithful adaptation of The Peanuts? And somehow that warrants giving it a star-and-a-half?

You'll have to pardon me while I roll my eyes and hack up a lung coughing, I'm writing this post while sick and in possession of a sassy attitude. Now that that's out of the way, though, let's revisit. Marter here wants a Peanuts movie that DOESN'T stick to the old jokes and vignettes, abandons the intentionally one-dimensional flat character personas in favor of forced development, and apparently cites Snoopy... the character that literally only stuck around because he stole the whole show... as a problem because he steals the show?

Couldn't we have just summed this whole review up as "I'm clearly not the target audience for this movie" and passed off the duty of reviewing it for a score to someone who actually understands the point and history of the Peanuts franchise and why it's still relatively popular today.

 

[RJ 17]

Wait...they made a Peanuts movie recently? *sigh*...well it's official: there truly is nothing sacred anymore.

Or as Charlie Brown would say: "UUUUUUGH!"

You're saying that like there haven't already been multiple Peanuts movies. I don't see how making another one is suddenly sacrilege.

Yeah...and those movies were made in the 70's...

 

[Kingjackl]

See, i was really worried about this movie because I love Peanuts, but I feel like I'm on a completely different page with the reviewer so I don't know how to take it. It's not that I like the movie, haven't seen it, it's just I feel like I have different priorities. T me, the Snoopy sections are indicative of the kind of broad, kid-friendly humour that most child aimed movies are these days, which is not what I care about. I'm more interested in seeing Charlie Brown try and fail and try again, like the great optimistic everyman he is.

Mind you, I am let down that a lot of the stuff with other characters are just repeats of old classics. The little red haired girl being essentially a macguffin is another unfortunate product of the strip's time that doesn't translate to a modern movie. When you look at him from a modern perspective, Charlie Brown is kind of a "nice guy", though I'd say he's a more positive example of that type of person than a lot of the neck beards we think of when we say that. For a start, he's too openly self-loathing, whereas your typical nice guy projects his own issues onto others, usually the woman he's after.

 

[Fox12]

Isn't Charlie Brown the one that always complains about soulless capitalism? The circle is complete.

The millions of coffee mugs, lunch boxes, pajamas, and bed spreads that were made with Snoopy on it before this movie was even in the works clearly shows that this was already a giant enterprise.

Maybe we should all cool our jets and not suddenly act like it's this movie that squeezed the soul out of this franchise.

My point was that there's a certain irony there. That's why I mentioned having the Lego movie team working on a sequel. They're self aware enough to work that into the film, as we've seen with Lego and 21 Jump Street.

My sister saw it yesterday and loved it, so I intend to watch it and decide for myself sometime before Christmas. What struck me about the CG is that it actually reminds me a little bit of claymation, which is interesting. I certainly like it more then what Disney and Dreamworks are doing these days. I've also noticed this the only site that seemed to give it such a low score, which is encouraging.

 

[Casual Shinji]

You're saying that like there haven't already been multiple Peanuts movies. I don't see how making another one is suddenly sacrilege.

Yeah...and those movies were made in the 70's...

Yes, they were. How does that make them sacred? It's not like Sally is getting voiced by Katy Perry and there's a Taylor Swift cameo in it or anything. It's just more Peanuts.

My point was that there's a certain irony there. That's why I mentioned having the Lego movie team working on a sequel. They're self aware enough to work that into the film, as we've seen with Lego and 21 Jump Street.

That just goes with the territory unfortunately. If something's popular it'll get turned into a giant money factory, even if that something is supposed to be innocent, wholesome comfort, like Winnie the Pooh.

 

[RJ 17]

You're saying that like there haven't already been multiple Peanuts movies. I don't see how making another one is suddenly sacrilege.

Yeah...and those movies were made in the 70's...

Yes, they were. How does that make them sacred? It's not like Sally is getting voiced by Katy Perry and there's a Taylor Swift cameo in it or anything. It's just more Peanuts.

There's a reason these movies hadn't been made since the 70's: there was no need for them since then. As this movie has (apparently) proven: there's still no need for them.

Forgive me for being one of those pricks who wants Hollywood to put away the shovel and stop digging up old franchises to try and cash in on nostalgia.

 

[RJ 17]

If something's popular it'll get turned into a giant money factory, even if that something is supposed to be innocent, wholesome comfort, like Winnie the Pooh.

And that's yet another nostalgic franchise that's being made into a modern movie...and yet another one that's going to be an atrocious abomination that some half-assed director and studio will crap out for no other reason than "Hey, remember Winnie the Pooh? Bet we could make some money off that son of a *****!"

 

[FPLOON]

I finally did see this movie [a couple of hours ago] and I kinda disagree with this movie being dull... It feels too faithful to the source material, which if you didn't like that then the movie's not going to change that even if the ending does something "slightly" different upon retrospective... In fact, in the theater that I saw this in, most of the "jokes" that the movie had made the adults/parents in the theater laugh because the dialogue felt more mature than the kids in the theater could pick up on even if they weren't using that many complex words or phrases... For me, I was more surprised with how much screentime each of the side characters got alongside some of their off-screen side-comments that did feel like most of the adults/parents would hear them more than the kids...

With that said, I went into this trying not to let my nostalgia fuel how I would feel about this movie and, overall, it felt like a G-rated "adult" film where all the characters are played by elementary-school kids... with Snoopy and Woodstock being the catalyses for the young audience to get into this movie from a physical perspective instead of a verbal perspective... That's not to say that kids won't laugh at the dialogue, per se, but don't expect them to laugh at the mispronunciation of the author of War and Peace, for example... Overall, you either going to like this movie or not in general, regardless if nostalgia from either liking or disliking the source material would sway you to one side or another beforehand... Would I recommend it to someone who doesn't like the source material in general? Even with the ending, I wouldn't unless they wanted to give it a [full] second chance, anyway...

Also, the animation seemed to be mimicking the series in terms of its fluidity, which could make certain moments outside of Snoopy's fantasy, for example, seem like it's missing a "frame" or two... and the music in the film had a mix of both iconic, classic, and modern with none of them really feeling more present than the other, in my opinion...

Was anybody expecting this to be good? Anybody?

*Joe Cool raises his hand*

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Its Peanuts, you know exactly what you're getting into when you hear it. Charlie Brown will have footballs pulled out from his run up until the end of time. And I will continue to not get the entire franchise until that time.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Really?!
Nobody is going to speak up? I'm the one who's gonna have to say it?

Sigh...alright.

GOOD GRIEF!!

Surely you mean AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!

Better luck next time Chuck.

Actually someone had already said that. So Good Grief was the correct phrase.

 

[marioandsonic]

"Despite the best of intentions, some good animation, and warmth and sweetness not often seen in today's age, The Peanuts Movie is dull, unfunny, and almost a complete loss when it comes to character and plot."

You could say that about the entirety of Peanuts as a franchise.

Never liked them, never will.

 

[Politrukk]

Honestly a movie of them just doing there thing is all I ever expected and wanted from them.

I don't see why they would have to make any more of it than there is that would ruin the entire franchise and shtick that is peanuts anyway (regardless from people liking it or not in general).

Edit : the only nitpick I have about the movie is some of the music choices (and not even all, some of it actually works when we consider the more modern choices).

I think trying to go see a Peanuts movie even when you're not a fan of Peanuts is just a no-no in general, ofcourse you will have a bad time (this being different if you've never had experience with the source material, but I'd recommend taking that in before then trying to enjoy the nostalgia this film is gunning for).


2nd edit:

After fully reading your review Marter I just wish you'd remove your review, you didn't like Peanuts or at least not enough to appreciate a modern homage to them that's all this is and all it can/wants to be.

The fact that you are basically calling the characters flat for being portrayed exactly as they were in the source material baffles me, do you want them to revoke your review permit?

 

[PointlessKnowledge]

At least to me, your review seems to say "I don't like Peanuts, thus I didn't like this movie as it was too much Peanuts". I understand that it is a major release and as a film critic you sorta have to review it, but you should at least own up to not liking the source material.

I actually wish that more movie adaptations were more like their source material, not Holywood's current view of "I know what would make this better!" rubbish that turns out garbage like Dragon Ball Evolution.

 

[Coruptin]

How come being just Peanuts is good enough for Peanuts, but movies like Transformers being just Transformers is some sort of unforgivable sin?

 

[tiamat5]

It hurts my heart to hear that people keep saying they remained faithful to the original. I mean am I the only person who actually watches movies anymore? It seems to me that the word 'watch' has boiled down to staring at the screen and not understanding or realizing what is going on. This movie has literally zero identity. Race for your life and Bonvoyage had their own identity and made some attempt at plot. This was a cut and paste job at best with basically zero attempt to carve out an identity for the film while doing a gruesome hatchet job on the characters. I agree fully about what he said.

These weren't characters, they were character traits on the screen that barely conversed with or acknowledged each other. Do you any of you realize that most of the Peanuts barely talked or had a conversation with each other. Where was the witty banter or the insightful ideas or quotes? For god sake Linus is Lucy's sister and I don't even think he said a word to her. Schroeder said the word Beethoven once throughout the entire film and Lucy barely acknowledged him or even did her usual annoyance of leaning on the piano and talking about marriage. The thing that made me especially upset is Peppermint Pattie's relationship with Marcie boiling down to basically abusing her and ignoring her. I mean stepping on her head and ignoring everything she says without even the slightest annoying or witty retort? They didn't even converse with the teachers, one of the funniest parts of Peanuts.They were there just to make the funny sounds with no attempt to humanize them in the least.

All semblance of the once clever and complex dialogue reduced to simple, predictable childish drivel. Linus didn't even say a single quote when by now he would have talked about the folly of love or compared Charlie Brown's love to a story or person from the past. And Sally crying on stage when we all know she would have yelled about the fickle nature of the audience or the harshness of the theater. You know what this was?The people who made this knew very well they might lose the audience if they went with the complexity and deeper nature of Peanuts so they opted rather then take chances they just made it into a predictable, generic family movie with sappy and predictable plot to go with it. I predicted they would do exactly this and lo and behold people fell for it.Heck they should have just made a movie about Snoopy since he was the one saving grace about it.

I mean like it if you want but stop saying the hatchet job they did to the characters captured the spirit of the original. It didn't and they should be ashamed at what they did. They took deep meaningful characters reduced them to the most simplistic sum of their parts. And for the people who keeps saying it was always like that obviously never watched a Peanuts cartoon or movie in their life.

 

[Logience]

How come being just Peanuts is good enough for Peanuts, but movies like Transformers being just Transformers is some sort of unforgivable sin?

Literally who has ever said that the Transformers movies is bad for being Transformers? That's the exact opposite problem of the Transformers movies!

Besides, this is basically just one big reminder that Peanuts exists, that's all. By contrast, the Muppets movies revived the characters and pointed out how they were still relevant in modern times while still having an actual story to tell.

 

[McMarbles]

Wait...they made a Peanuts movie recently? *sigh*...well it's official: there truly is nothing sacred anymore.

Or as Charlie Brown would say: "UUUUUUGH!"

Isn't Charlie Brown the one that always complains about soulless capitalism? The circle is complete.

Only when he wasn't shilling for a massive soulless insurance corporation.

Fully approved by Sainted Sparky, BTW. In addition to piles and piles of merchandise.

 

[flying_whimsy]

I just saw the movie last night. It's good, but not great. It is pretty funny, though. The animation worked well and I loved how much effort they put into capturing the feel of the hand-animated cartoons. I also really enjoyed the fact that it wasn't afraid to be like a cartoon instead of trying to be more realistic.

The issue I've found with the movie is that it was afraid to be its own thing and stand on its own two feet. Instead the film settled on reminding us of all of the things we liked in past Peanuts enterprises: there are scenes in the movie that were straight up copied from the classic christmas special. The few times where it really does tell its own story it's great: Charlie Brown's 'failures' at the talent show and school dance are pretty charming and epic in a peanuts kind of way. The supportive and loving relationship Snoopy and his owner have is charming and is portrayed in ways that the comics and cartoons have never managed. But those moments are constantly interrupted by nostalgia-bait repeats of scenes we've seen before.

Also, the film is basically charlie brown's self-sabotaged quest to win the little redheaded girl, and well, it's kind of creepy. He sort of stalks her and tries to win her over in some amazingly unrealistic and passive ways. And while it's kind of sweet and generally how I remember it being as a little shy kid, I think showing a little more of the redheaded girl as a character as opposed to an object might have been that little kick the film needed to edge into something great.

Overall, it's good, but just not good enough to really cement a place in history next to even the b-list peanuts specials.