Sing (2016)

Review

108min

Genre:     Animation, Comedy, Family, Music

Directors: Christophe Lourdelet and Garth Jennings

Cast:       Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane

Writer:    Garth Jennings

-Synopsis-

With his failing family theatre threatening to go under, an enterprising Koala hatches a scheme to host a huge singing competition for the city’s animal residents. But things quickly get out of hand and his future soon hangs in the balance, along with the hopes and dreams of his disparate contestants, in this musical animation from the creators of ‘Despicable Me’ featuring the voices of some of Hollywood’s finest.

After dipping their toe in the world of anthropomorphic animal animation with last year’s ‘The Secret Life of Pets’, Illumination Entertainment takes the full plunge here with what looks like a San Francisco full of walkin’, talkin’ and workin’ animals of every description, in this all-singing and partly dancing animated romp for the whole family which essentially amounts to ‘The Producers’ meets ‘Zootropolis’… with a generous serving of ‘American Idol’.

Matthew McConaughey lends his unmistakable voice and delivery to adorable Koala and theatre manager ‘Buster Moon’, a wheeler-dealer impresario who concocts a talent show-style singing competition in a last ditch effort to attract audiences and save his failing business. Enter a whole host quirky characters with musical ambitions vying for the prize; from Reese Witherspoon’s stay-at-home pig mother of too many piglets to count, to Seth MacFarlane’s streetwise crooner mouse and Scarlett Johansson’s moody teenage porcupine rocker.

‘Sing’ is a fairly simple family crowd-pleaser with plenty of laughs throughout, an opportunity to hear some popular figures from film and music open their vocal chords and let rip with some familiar modern pop favourites in what basically amounts to big-budget animated karaoke, all within a charming story with some familiar life lessons about family, the importance of chasing your dreams and the courage to be yourself.

With almost no original songs, the film’s music consists of a sporadic original score that’s drowned out by a soundtrack of some classics and of course the film’s stars performing versions of recognisable pop songs, with the odd bit of subtle help from Mr Auto-Tune. However for the most part all the performances are accomplished and unexpected from some of the movie stars involved, but it’s all very ‘reality TV singing contest’ standard, technically good but with no real soul or colour… apart from Seth MacFarlane’s dulcet tones as a singing street mouse reincarnation of Frank Sinatra.

However‘Sing’ works thanks to the combination of the unlikely singing animals mixed with the comedy stylings and pop-culture references in the film, leveraging the individual traits of each species to ramp up the laughs and combine with an overall light and silly tone that’s clearly aimed at the youngest members of the family, with Nick Kroll’s gloriously flamboyant singing & dancing German pig ‘Gunter’ stealing every scene he’s in.

But thanks to the high standards being set by Disney and Pixar among others over the last decade, ‘Sing’ falls well short of the clever, nuanced and multi-layered animated films like ‘Zootropolis’, ‘Inside Out’ and ‘Big Hero 6’ over the last few years alone. This is very much a one-dimensional movie aimed primarily at a young audience, without a deeper appeal for the rest of the family, no doubt it’s entertaining and easy to engage with but it’s as forgettable as it is fun… but as annoyingly catchy as some of the music it uses.

Only seven years into its life as a production company and judging from its last three films, it seems that Illumination Entertainment has perfected a simple, low-risk and highly lucrative formula which it shows little intention of changing, and why would it?, proving itself to be an emerging challenger to the established animation giants at the box office… if not in terms of quality or longevity.

The Bottom Line…

While is certainly doesn’t trouble the likes of Disney and Pixar in the memorable, layered and wonderfully inventive animations stakes, ‘Sing’ is fun and funny light entertainment full of delightful silliness. A near two-hour animal pop sing-along that will delight children and teenagers everywhere, with just enough to keep the rest of the family entertained and annoyed by how much they end up enjoying it… but who will forget it as soon as they leave the cinema.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Zootropolis (2016)

In a world were humans never existed and animals walk, talk and live like modern day people; a young determined bunny struggles to prove her worth as the first ever member of her species to serve as a cop, but an unlikely alliance gives her an opportunity to shine and solve a mystery which threatens a peaceful co-existence in yet another rich animation from the good folks at Disney.

Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore & Jared Bush and starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman and Idris Elba among others.

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