Good grief! You’re back on the silver screen, Charlie Brown.
By Jim Vejvoda
Decidedly old school, simplistic and gentle at a time when most animated feature films are increasingly bombastic and frankly obnoxious, The Peanuts Movie manages to maintain the spirit and, more surprisingly, the look of Charles M. Schulz’s beloved comic strip characters despite being in 3D and CG-animated for the first time.
While the comic strip characters have appeared in a slew of animated TV specials over the last half-century, Blue Sky Studios — the folks behind the Ice Age franchise and Horton Hears a Who! — have brought Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang back to the big screen for the first time since 1980’s Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!).
Working from a script co-written by Schulz’s son Craig and grandson Bryan (along with Cornelius Uliano), director Steve Martino and Co. have kept all the elements that made the Peanuts gang the charming and long-lasting icons that they are. Any longtime fans afraid the new movie would violate the spirit of Charlie Brown needn’t worry.
We want to hear it.
The skimpy plot is simple enough: Charlie Brown, that lovable but perpetually luckless and insecure Midwestern kid, wants to prove himself worthy to his new crush, the Little Red-Haired Girl who just moved in next door and is new to his school. Prompted by Lucy, who is forever cataloguing his deficiencies and then charging him a nickel for it, Charlie wants to become a “winner” so the Little Red-Haired Girl won’t see him as everyone else does. But as any Peanuts fan could tell you, Charlie Brown fails at pretty much everything he tries, from flying kites to kicking a football. So, of course, his attempts to ace a book report, win the talent show, and show off some moves at the school dance cannot go off without major embarrassments.
Running parallel to Charlie Brown’s story is Snoopy’s subplot where his literal flights of fancy have him out to win the heart of Fifi, a pink-haired poodle, even as he must defeat his World War I aerial enemy, the Red Baron. Although well animated and vibrant in 3D, these many Red Baron sequences feel like filler and are inconsequential to the movie as a whole. Still, Snoopy remains his ever-lovable, winning self, doing his best to join Charlie Brown at school and to help him find his courage.
On a technical level, The Peanuts Movie nails the look of the old Charlie Brown cartoons and comic strips even though it’s CG-animated. While there are a few hand-drawn touches peppered throughout, it’s remarkable that such cutting edge animation technology has been used to make a modern movie look so vintage. The overall melancholy tone is also in line with the original toons, capturing the angst and almost divine mockery poor Charlie Brown faces on a daily basis.
We want to hear it.
The voice cast — all actual little kids — ace the characters. They all sound like the Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Sally, Marcy, et al., from yesteryear. Furthermore, the movie uses archival recordings of the late Bill Melendez for the “voices” of Snoopy and Woodstock. Again, as with the approach to the animation, it all works as a fitting tribute to and continuation of the Peanuts legacy.
But I do wonder if that big plus might also be to the film’s detriment in bringing in young viewers. Far more adults at my screening laughed at the jokes and reacted to the movie than their kids did. The Peanuts Movie is a sweet nostalgia trip for those who grew up with all those TV specials and movies (not just the Christmas and Great Pumpkin shows), but is it simply too quaint, too quiet and too slow for children growing up in the age of Cars and Frozen and Minions? I certainly hope it doesn’t meet the same audience apathy as 2011’s well-reviewed flop Winnie the Pooh, another old school valentine to quaint source material.
This nostalgic and faithful rendition of Charles M. Schulz’s beloved Peanuts gang offers plenty for older fans to enjoy, but it may ultimately be too mellow and conventional for those growing up with far more (and livelier) animation options.
