Synopsis: “Strange Magic,” a new animated film, is a madcap fairy tale musical inspired by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Popular songs from the past six decades help tell the tale of a colorful cast of goblins, elves, fairies and imps, and their hilarious misadventures sparked by the battle over a powerful potion. (Lucas Film)
Cast: Kristin Chenoweth, Alfred Molina, Alan Cumming, Peter Stormare, Maya Rudolph & Evan Rachel Wood
Movie Review
‘Strange Magic’, the latest brain spill from George Lucas, jumps on the bandwagon of animated flicks which cast aside the notion of original music and instead pull pop songs from years past to the past winners of ‘American Idol’. This flick is a confused messed from the get go, with a PG rating, a mash-up of adult themes, elementary dialogue and a seemingly sketchy message to young girls.
For what age the writers had truly intended this is anyone’s guess, but within the first 15 minutes I found myself wondering if living in one of the U.S. States that offered legal recreational cannabis would make this movie more tolerable.
The cast is star studded, to say the least, but even the pipes of Kristin Chenoweth could not save bad dialogue, dubious plot and poor editing. I will give credit where credit is due, the animation itself was top notch.
Though I do agree with the movie’s tagline, “Everybody deserves to be loved”, I don’t believe every movie does. To sum it up, ‘Strange Magic’ is pretty/awful.
Special Features
The DVD version of Strange Magic only comes with two special features. The first is called Magical Mash Up and includes outakes, tests and songs. The second feature is a short meet the cast and filmmakers called Creating the Magic, which is pretty much just a promotional piece about making the movie. Neither really add much to the purchase.
