LogFAQs > #962239028

10. The Peanuts Movie

Ermine: 7
Inviso: 10
Johnbobb: 14
Red: 14
Evillord: 17
Karo: 26

Total: 88

Ermine: Fantastic art style and animation that is carried by Snoopy the Dog. I LOVE that the movie has a ton of him in it and his antics are always a joy to watch. Just a very pleasant and fun movie. Good stuff!

Inviso: I actually wanted to see this when it came out, but making time to go to the movies can be difficult, so this was actually the first time Id seen the film. If I could use one word to describe this, it would be wholesome. Thats not a dig at the movie, either. There are wholesome films that are dull as dishwater because theyre morality tales. But this was just nice and pleasant and sweet from beginning to end. Sure, there is a long history to the Peanuts franchise, but it all worked well here. This wasnt a kids movie that felt the need to engage in fart humor or gross-out humor to appeal to the addled minds of children. No, you just have a nice person in the protagonist role, who doesnt see himself as all that special, and even though a lot of things go wrong, they go wrong as a result of him choosing to be nice instead of selfish. And at the end of the day, hes rewarded with the respect he thought hed been lacking throughout the film. Its a good moral, and the plot is just really comforting to watch.

Johnbobb: This movie is cute as hell. This is one of the select few examples of a modern take on an old franchise that actually manages to both capture what was great about the original while still making it feel fresh and new. For a similar experience, see the 2011 Winnie the Pooh. For the opposite experience see... man, where to start. The Grinch, on this very list, but also The Addams Family, The Smurfs, every live-action Disney remake, and on and on. It's stuff like that that makes The Peanuts Movie feel like such a rare gem. It's not perfect of course; the Meghan Trainor song that plays twice reeks of the annoying trend of trying to use a movie to popularize an unrelated, generic, upbeat pop song (see "Happy" in Despicable Me 2 and "Can't Stop the Feeling!" in Trolls), and the new character, named only as "The Little Red-Haired Girl" is very clearly nothing but a plot device, but its flaws are small and don't hurt the overall experience.

Red: This is, well a Peanuts movie. It has exactly what you would expect, characters in situations you would expect, Charlie Brown being unfortunate and clumsy, Snoopy on his own made up adventure. It doesn't exactly take risks, it just kind of is exactly what you would expect. It doesn't make for a bad movie and its not a sequel, so thats a plus. It is definitely a safe movie, but it is enjoyable for what it is.

Evillord: I love the Peanuts TV specials, which made me predisposed to like this, but then on the other hand meant I would inevitably spend the whole film agonizing over minute deviations from the old version. At points it felt like too much of an empty fanservice film, running down a checklist of classic gags from Schulz' comics or repeating storylines from the specials, even if seeing the kids re-enact their dance moves from the sixties or watching Charlie Brown try to get through War and Peace again did make me smile. At other points, I thought it didn't take after the specials enough. I wish the whole soundtrack was made of Vince Guaraldi's old jazz recordings, and while the 3D models imitating the movements of the original 2D cells with some hand-drawn accompanying animation made for a cool and unique style, it also made me wonder why they didn't just make this entirely in 2D. This doesn't quite capture the wistfulness, that longing for a certain undefinable something that's missing from your life, that made A Charlie Brown Christmas resonate with me so deeply, but it was still a good time.

Karo: Charles Schultzs famous comic strip about a bunch of children who are the offspring of trombones made into movie form. For like the fifth time. But now it is 3D!
So the primary plot centers on how Charlie Brown tries everything imaginable to get the attention of the little red haired girl, except for, y'know, just fucking going up to her and saying hi. Whatever that can go wrong goes wrong and Charlie then gets emo and mopey. Repeat this as often as needed to get yourself a feature length film.
There is a side story of Snoopy imagining he is fighting the Red Baron over the affections of a cute girl dog and that is not really that great either.
As the film goes on, we get a chance to check off every little gag from the comics and it often feels more like an absurdly extended peanuts special than a real movie.
The classic style is adapted into CG in a way that looks much better than you would think, and its subtle tone is a welcome relief amidst the loud and frantic wasteland of childrens' animated entertainment. But it feels like there is not really a lot going on to justify an hour and a half of content.
Despite it being the best movie adaptation of these characters, the Peanuts gang just doesnt mesh well with the long form storytelling of cinema and they didnt quite kick the football here this time.