The Peanuts Movie (2015)

Review by CJ

Director:
Steve Martino

Starring:
Noah Schnapp, Rebecca Bloom, Anastasia Bredikhina, Francesca Capaldi, Alexander Garfin, Noah Johnston, Hadley Belle Miller, Venus Schultheis, Mariel Sheets, Madisyn Shipman, AJ Tecce

Other notable appearances:
Troy ‘Trombone Shorty’ Andrews, Bill Melendez, Kristin Chenoweth

Running time:
88 minutes

Watch this if you liked:
Home, the Peanuts television specials

Long-suffering failure Charlie Brown (Schnapp) meets and falls for the little red-haired girl (Capaldi). Meanwhile, Snoopy (Melendez) takes on his nemesis the Red Baron to save his beloved Fifi (Chenoweth).

I’ll begin by saying that I haven’t seen a Peanuts film before and have never really been a fan of the comic strips. I watched The Peanuts Movie because I was on a two hour flight and it was one of the in-flight movies.

Unfortunately, The Peanuts Movie has not done much to endear the Peanuts gang to me. The plot was simple but overall it was repetitive and I found it to be quite dull. The scenes involving Snoopy were a breath of fresh air, but there was nowhere near enough of these scenes to save the rest of the film.

The best part of The Peanuts Movie was the ending. That’s not even being snarky. The ending had more heart than the entire rest of the film combined. It was a nice touch on an otherwise painful film experience.

The soundtrack for The Peanuts Movie tried too hard to be upbeat and modern. This didn’t fit with either the wholesome natural of the plot or the animation styled to emulate the comic strip and past animated films. The effect was like taking an old silent film and dubbing a trance anthem over the top. It just didn’t work.

Overall, I feel that Peanuts fans may be far more inclined to enjoy The Peanuts Movie and that’s how it should be. Personally though, I found it to be painfully dull, lifeless and short on the main beagle.

Rating:

“Good grief.”