Sing

(spoiler free)

Kicking off the year in animation is Illumination Entertainment’s ‘Sing’. Following on from the success of their most recent movies ‘Sing’ tells the story of theathre loving koala bear, Buster Moon, and his attempts to produce a fantastic new stage show that doubles as a talent competition. The film boasts an impressive voice cast and with a decent track record could Illumination Entertainment be on to another winner?

Personally I don’t think so. Firstly there are way too many characters in this movie and they are all given roughly the same amount of screen time, this meant that each predictable character arc was a dull and shallow as the next. Only thanks to the charisma of Taron Egerton does his character Johnny the gorilla become more interesting than the rest and the only character really worth routing for. With such a varied voice cast including the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johnasson & Seth MacFarlane audience members will be able to connect with certain characters thanks to the likeability of these performers but if the characters here were voiced by unknown stars there would be little hope. Often the character arcs play out so painfully slowly that ‘Sing’ becomes a frustrating watch. I must remember that this is a film for children but even still I think they deserve more than this.

The overall narrative isn’t much better, playing out like a cliched version of a TV talent show and hardly deviating from the tired formula that we are so accustomed to. I assumed that ‘Sing’ would in some way take the piss of this format or at least put a spin on the usual way these shows play out but in a remarkably unoriginal turn ‘Sing’ instead chooses to replicate the exact story that this crowded TV market churn out every weekend. Once the film eventually reaches it’s finale, I was already in disbelief that the movie isn’t even two hours long, there is another ordeal to endure showcasing once more the issue of having too many characters with equal screen time. By the end of the film I was left wondering just what the point of the whole thing was, it certainly wasn’t funny enough to be called entertaining and the message in it was nothing groundbreaking and not even particularly well done.

With what has been a quite impressive cinematic start to the new year, ‘Sing’ is most definitely the lowest point so far. Unsuccessfully managing to be simultaneously entertaining for both children and adults ‘Sing’ will immediately alienate its older audience and I wouldn’t be confident of it maintaining the attention of it’s younger viewers either. Catchy renditions of popular musical hits of today can only take the film so far and when ‘Sing’ decides to be as tiresome and empty as the talent shows it portrays it offers a similar level of entertainment, not much.

Rating – 4/10

Question: Which animated movie are you most looking forward to in 2017?
(Leave your answers in the comments section below!)

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