Impressions on Epic (or according to Andrew, Ferngully done right)

About a month ago, I watched the movie Epic with a friend of mine.  I'm going to preface this post by saying that I'm not a very good critic, movies or games or otherwise.  I can tell you how I felt when I watched something, but I'd have a hard time telling about story elements that went into me feeling how I felt.

Epic. Simple title.  Simple story. [SPOILER ALERT]  Girl goes to spend time with her eccentric dad. Dad is obsessed with finding these little people he thinks live in the forest. Girl ends up shrinking to the size of the little people. Girl helps save the world. [/SPOILER ALERT]

Even though story's like Epic's have been told multiple times over and over again, somehow, Epic manages to still be a heartwarming film about the relationship between a father and his daughter, a mentor and his mentee, and...well I can't come up with a third thing.  Somehow, an annoying slug and snail get thrown into the mix.  Trust me, I still have no idea why the two were there.  Several times, their performances were quite disturbing.  And by performance, I guess I mean digital animations. (I was so disturbed writing this, that I accidentally spelled disturbing as distrubing).

There were many parts of the movie that I quite enjoyed.  Aside from the two creepy gooey things, there was a wonderful cast.  The father was passionate and eccentric.  He wanted to bond with his daughter, yet was also engaged in a lifelong hunt for these little people.  The daughter was thrown into an environment totally unlike any she had been in before (she also showed more restraint than most college students when in similar situations. Sorry, no raucous parties).  There was a queen that everyone absolutely adored.  She loved life, living things, smiling, yet wasn't afraid to fight to keep life going.  There was the villain, who was bound and determined to make everything around him rot and die.  There was the stoic queen's guard who had a hard time relating to his mentee, a hot-headed and unconventional independent young man.












Oh, and how is this Ferngully done right?  Well, they managed to speak about the importance of life, the forest, etc without it turning into some kind of anti-industrial/pollution Green Peace rant. The villain was much more realistic, and in some ways, very frightening.  Also, Epic is a lot less weird than Ferngully was.  And frankly, it didn't frighten me.  The villain from Ferngully terrified me as a kid.  Personally I'd rather face something human looking that could rot everything he touched rather than a oozing blob of brown gunk.

Anyways, I would highly recommend giving Epic a look.  I think it is worth watching.  It's rated PG and might be too frightening for kids under the age of 8.
-Andrew