 |
| A light-hearted, wild adventure is promised by this colorful poster for Amalie Næsby Fick, Jørgen Lerdam and Philip Einstein Lipski's The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear |
In Sun Town, popular mayor J.B. disappears inexplicably one evening. When friends Mitcho and Sebastian receive a message in a bottle from him containing a seed, an adventure to a mysterious island for his rescue soon begins!
The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear is a family-friendly adventure comedy animation written by Bo Hr. Hansen (Speed Walking/Kapgang (2014)), based on the same-titled 2012 children's book by Jakob Martin Strid (Vi Hader Alting!! (1997)), and directed by Amalie Næsby Fick, Jørgen Lerdam (Hugo the Movie Star/Jungledyret 2 - Den Store Filmhelt (1996)) and Philip Einstein Lipski (Ronal the Barbarian/Ronal Barbaren (2011)).
The adventure is a classic Strid creation of untamed imagination and a healthy dose of humor, featuring pathetic pirates, a bureaucratic, power-hungry vice-mayor villain, a strange, lonely dragon-ship captain, ghosts and giant pears. It is never too dramatic for little children and still has the ability to entertain and make bigger children and adults laugh as well.
The original Danish voice cast do very well, and Peter Frödin (Motello (1998)) as the absentminded professor is especially funny. The animation of Sun Town is cute and funny, and the storm portion, ghost section and mysterious island also have well-made looks. The characters, including leads Mitcho and Sebastian, who are a kiddie cat and an elephant without that fact ever raising any eyebrows, are sweet and well-defined, and the film's showing the insides of vessels as cut open in the middle may be inspired from Wes Anderson films like The Darjeeling Limited (2007) and probably especially his oceanic adventure The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004).
The 'camera' is mostly fixed low near the leads' perspective and don't move around much, even when it would have been exciting. Budget restraints and Danish animation custom may have had a say in this. There's just one small song in the movie, (by the pirates), and it could have been a real kicker, but isn't really, unfortunately.
SPOILER In the film's most dramatic moment, of course towards the very end, Mitcho and Sebastian are caught together far underwater, and Mitcho helps swim her friend to the surface. They are clearly really in danger, but the scene as they surface strangely doesn't reflect this, perhaps made so with the youngest audiences in mind, - but it is a bit of a strange conclusion.
These minor drawbacks don't change that The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear is a delight and enormously recommendable cinema fare for the whole family.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear premiered 12 October (Denmark) and runs 78 minutes. The film has received support from the Danish Film Institute. It opened #1 in Denmark, its only market to date, where it sold 138k tickets in the 12-22 October Autumn break period, more than 60k more tickets than the #2 film, The Snowman. The film only has one foreign release scheduled yet, in Hungary on 8 February 2018. The film's budget has not been made public. 61 IMDb users have given the film a 7.3/10 average rating.]
What do you think of The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear?
No comments:
Post a Comment