Sing

I honestly kind of feel bad for the people who put this movie out. Sing came out around the holidays last year in 2016 and I imagine a lot of people had the same outlook on it I did. It's coming to the end of the year, Rogue One is out, and I've already seen Zootopia, I don't have much of an interest in another animated film about talking animals.

Now, that's the perspective of a guy in his twenties. The movie outperformed it's budget and nobody is saying kids are only interested in one talking animal animated movie a year. However, I do think that this movie would have made a bigger audience with people had it not been in the shadow of the Mouse, because comparisons aside. This is actually a pretty good movie.

Sing is an ensemble piece that follows a bunch of animals living in a metropolis who all like to sing and perform in one way or another. None of them are professionals but the movie quickly introduces a number of them and their lives while also establishing they have some talent.

And then we're introduced to Buster Moon (voiced by Matthew McConaughey). He is the owner of a failing theater. He's a fast talking schemer who at times feels more like a con man than a guy who is actually interested in the theater. McConaughey does a really great job in this performance as he portrays this suave, fast talking koala who is so optimistic, he refuses to see how bleak his dream has become. Again, sometimes it comes off like he's a con man more than an optimist but it made me enjoy McConaughey even more than I already do.

Well in an attempt to save his theater, Buster Moon decides to put on a singing contest that will attract singers to compete against one another and bring in customers to his theater again. Think American Idol but with animals.

However, when Moon puts out the advertisement for the show, there is a mistake and it's advertised that there will be a 100,000 dollar prize for the winner of the contest.

This attracts a number of animals from the city, all vying for the huge prize.

The contestants include a pig housewife by the name of Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), a gorilla with a rough family life by the name of Johnny (voiced by Taron Edgerton). A punk rocking porcupine by the name of Ash (played by Scarlett Johanneson). A shy teenage elephant by the name of Meena (played by Tori Kelly), and a rough around the edged, smooth talking, jazz singing mouse by the name of Mike (voiced by Seth MacFarlane).

These are just the names of the main cast but there are a good number of celebrity names attached to this movie including Nick Kroll, John C Reiley, Jennifer Saunders, Leslie Jones, Jay Pharoah, Beck Bennett, Rhea Perlman, and Nick Offerman. This movie was made by the same guys who did The Secret Life of Pets, which came out the same year, and they are really good at getting star studded casts for these animated movies.

The other interesting part about this movie is that a lot of these big name actors actually sing in this movie. I mean you've got Seth MacFarlane who has a pretty good side career singing, and Tori Kelly who is better known for singing than acting, but almost everyone else kind of surprised me that they sing in this movie. Reese Witherspoon and Scarlet Johanasson are two examples of this. I've seen these actors multiple times but suddenly they're singing? Yeah they're not amazing, but they're not bad. And Taron Edgerton, holy smokes, I really enjoyed his final song, a cover of Still Standing by Elton John, it might be my favorite song of the movie.

As you can guess, there is some singing (I'll get to the music in a second), some personal development surrounding the characters, and some tension with the fact that Buster Moon does not have 100,000 dollars to award the winner of this competition, even though these characters are all seeking that prize money. While the story is a bit predictable, I do have to sit back a little bit and recognize that these movies are made for kids.

I think we've gotten to a point in our day and age where we're so used to Pixar spitting out these movies that are directed at all audiences and edge on being more entertaining for adults then they are for kids. Like I said, Illumination made The Secret Life of Pets which I said in my review of that movie that it was more directed at kids. Despicable Me and the Minions franchise is more directed towards kids. It's not fair to compare this movie to Zootopia because they are vastly different and that's because Zootopia is a kids movie that has undertones about racial profiling and the police, Sing is just a fun romp with singing animals. If you go into an Illumination movie, you're going to get animated movies more geared towards kids. There's nothing wrong with that, just set your expectations accordingly.

And yeah let's talk about the music.

So the music is not bad. There's a lot of catchy music in this movie and it's all pop hits. You've got My Way by Frank Sinatra, you've got Shake it Off by Taylor Swift, Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen, Don't You Worry About a Thing, etc. There are a lot of popular songs sung in this movie.

There is a mixture of old and new songs, especially in the audition scene that this movie for some reason seemed to rip off of Pitch Perfect, but the issue I have with the music is that it featured a lot of songs that I think were popular in 2016 and maybe a little earlier, but won't really age well down the road. For example, if one day I have kids, and my kids eventually have kids and they show them this movie, are they really going to remember Carly Rae Jepsen? No. Shake It Off is a catchy song but it's not going to go down as the memorable as some classic songs I've seen in other soundtracks.

The other odd part of this movie that confused me was that I expected a lot more singing. I know that sounds weird but this movie is not a musical.

The characters sing for sure, but it's not really until the end that we hear a full performance of a song and I thought there was going to be a lot more of that, especially in a movie called Sing.

The audition scene is a great example of this. You've got all these animals singing really popular songs. But they're only 10 second snippets and then they're onto the next song.

I'm not complaining about the story because the story is actually pretty good and really cute. You've got Johnny and his father, Ash and her boyfriend, Rosita and her family, it's all pretty good and a great use of a big cast like this. However, don't go into this movie thinking you're going to hear a musical, that's not really what this movie is.

Another thing I found really impressive with this movie was the animation. One reason or another, I was really impressed with the style and how these characters moved. It was appealing and it felt unique.

It has to be difficult for animators who don't work for Disney to create good animation that doesn't feel too much like the main competitor and I think Sing did that really really well. If I was an exec over at Illumination, I would drop the minions and start building movies around these characters. They're likeable, they're easy to sell toys for, market the crap out of these guys!

But it brings me to the unfortunate part about Sing and that's just the fact that it fell in the shadow of a phenomenal movie like Zootopia. Again, you can like both. Both are good movies. Sing just didn't have the same cultural impact that Zootopia did when looking back at 2016. Had it come out at a different time, different competition, I think this movie could have been bigger. This isn't so much a criticism as much as it is putting it in the perspective of its success and what it'll be compared to because as much as I wanted to avoid that in this review, I did the exact same thing when I was watching it.

Sing is a cute movie. It's not overly extraordinary, but it's probably one of the more underrated animated films that came out of 2016. The truth is, 2016 was a tough year. I've talked about Zootopia, but you also have to consider that Moana came out around the same time as this film, Finding Dory came out that year, Kung Fu Panda 3, and Angry Birds all came out that year. It was actually a pretty competitive year. I'm not surprised I'm just getting around to Sing now because while it's good, it doesn't stick out as much as the other films.

Doesn't mean it's not good though. It's on Netflix right now, check it out and have yourself a good time.

But what did you think of Sing? Was there enough singing, too much singing? Comment and Discuss Below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I meant to put this out over the holidays and this video would have been more timely then. However, it's still a fun video. Enjoy!