Movie Review: Epic

Looks like a really, really, REALLY cool movie, huh?! I WAS SO EXCITED TO SEE IT!! My parents bought this movie last night and I nearly freaked out. We stayed up late to watch it.

It lived up to all of my expectations...up until the middle...and the end.

It wasn't a bad movie, don't get me wrong. I loved it! It was very imaginative and SO well animated. They payed such attention to the little things and I love that! But...the story line was lacking.

My first impression was: WOW. Very cool. I loved the animation and the thought put into all of the little details, like the leafmen jumping super high because they're small, and all of that super cool stuff. But during the middlish-endish, I sorta was like...is this it? I mean, is this the whole movie? There has to be more to it than this.


QUALITY:
5 out of 5 stars
This is one of the best-quality movies I've ever seen, up there with Rise of the Guardians. The animation is superb. The attention the animators put into the details of the leafmen, from freckles to leaf-veins and little hairs on the stems of flowers, really knocked my socks off. I loved the animation style, how everything was all glowing and beautiful in Moonhaven and all foggy and dark in the Boggan lands. It definitely lived up to my expectations in this category. The battle scenes, BTW, were amazingly cool. Plus, the creativity involved in the details of this movie was incredible.

CHARACTERS:
3.8 out of 5 stars
I'm really not sure how to rate the characters of this movie. The characters were well-thought out and I had no problem distinguishing personalities between characters. But they weren't very well developed through the movie. For example, Nod was a total rebel, and he never really had a defining moment to accept help from others. And MK struggled with all the small-people abilities for the whole movie, and suddenly at the end she started flying hummingbirds with no problemo. There were a few well-developed secondary characters, though; we all agreed Ronin and the Queen were the greatest characters in the movie. Despite this, I'm giving them an almost-four star review for characters because of the inconsistent development of the two main characters.

STORY:
2.5 out of 5 stars
The story lacked. I thought it did, anyways. It was a very simple, straightforward storyline, with hardly any twists or surprises, which left me sort of disappointed. I was really expecting this AWESOME movie with a storyline that kept me on the edge of my seat. I don't know if it's just because it was made for smaller kids or what, but the story was a "bare-minimum story". Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the storyline. At the end of the movie, I was blinking at the screen and saying to myself, "That's it? That's the end? But...but...? What about mortal injuries? Deaths? WHAT DID THE HERO LOSE?! NOOOOOTHING!!!! THERE'S NO ARC TO THIS STORY!!!!" But it was still a story, and followed all of the rules of storytelling, so it wasn't unbearable or anything. It had a plot, just an incredibly simple one.

ACTING:
4 out of 5 stars
I thought all of the voice actors did a very good job. No one really stood out more than the other; my least favorite voice actor was probably Josh Hutcherson as Nod, but maybe because I just don't really like him anyways. The best was either Beyoncé as the queen or MK's dad (don't know his actor). He did a really good job.


OVERALL AVERAGE STAR RATING:
3.8 stars out of 5

I would probably give it a 4 anyways, just because of how entertaining the movie is for it's details and animation.

So, what are your thoughts on Epic? Did you like/hate it? What would you rate it?