Movie Review: Sing (2016)

Summary: Set in a world like ours but entirely inhabited by animals, Buster Moon a dapper koala who presides over a once-grand theater that has fallen on hard times. Buster is an eternal-some might even say delusional-optimist who loves his theater above all and will do anything to preserve it. Now faced with the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he has one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.

Pros:

Cast & Characters. I liked them all to be honest, they’re not unlikable characters so it’s easy to watch the movie without being irritated with the characters. There’s probably only one I didn’t like but it wasn’t because he was a horribly written character, it’s because he’s just a horrible person lol.

• Matthew McConaughey as Buster Moon. He is a koala who is trying to revive his theater and he is ambitious and I think McConaughey was a perfect choice. He should do more voice acting because between this and his character from Kubo it’s so easy to not realize he’s voicing these characters. It’s like he went slightly higher in the voice department for the character, his comedic timing was great and even though the character has some downfalls, he’s likable. I like that his character is a mixture between selfish and a mentor. He’s doing this to revive his theater and he’ll do whatever it takes but the way he interacts wth the others, especially Meena is really cute. He also has some nice heartfelt moments.

• Reese Witherspoon as Rosita (pig). First of all, let me say, this character as a mom was fantastic. She has like 25 kids and when she gets into the competition, the way she has to keep making moves as their mom even without being there… amazing. Reese is adorable in this role, she maintains this sweet maternal feeling through her voice with this character. Her singing voice is also nice. I haven’t seen her sing in anything, at least not seriously (I did not see Walk the Line), so I was pleasantly surprised. She’s definitely the mother of the group.

• Seth MacFarlane as Mike (mouse). The entire movie I was trying to figure out this dude’s voice. He’s this little mouse who seems to be out of time, he should have been around with Frank Sinatra lol. He wears this red zoot suit. Now he’s definitely a jerk, he gets a little too excited and thinks he automatically wins the prize money because everyone else looks like losers to him, so he gets into some nonsense with some bears. MacFarlane can definitely play jerks and he definitely knows how to put on different voices that sound differently. I always knew he could sing but this definitely allows him to highlight it more. Also, I didn’t like him because he was a horrible person but I still liked him enough.

• Tori Kelly as Meena (elephant). Tori Kelly can sing. I get chills. She plays this shy elephant who can really sing but she’s afraid to sing in front of people so she doesn’t. When she first tries to audition she can’t even get it together. Meena ends up becoming his stage hand which allows for a nice relationship between her and Buster, a mentorship if you will. I liked it. She was sweet and supportive to everyone but when she opened her mouth to sing… CHILLS.

• Taron Egerton as Johnny (gorilla). I love Taron. I love him. I didn’t know he could sing like this until I saw the trailer and I realized he was playing Johnny and I freaked out. Now, I think I liked his character the most and I think this character had the most interesting storyline and I now want Taron to actually be in a live action version of this character’s story lol. It’d be great! His character is so sweet and sincere but he wants to please his father so much even though he doesn’t want to be in the gang his father leads. He’s good at what he does but he’s in pain because of what he feels like he’s hiding and then later the strained relationship with his father.

• Scarlett Johansson as Ash (porcupine). I think this is a promising career of Scarlett being a voice actress, she should do it more often. I would like her a whole lot more because I liked her voice here. Normally, she annoys me so much but I liked Ash. She is a teenager (which I’m trying to figure out her relationship with her boyfriend… is he older or was she kicked out that she could have her own apartment??) who is into rock and she auditions with her boyfriend but Buster takes her because she’s awesome on her own. Salty boyfriend and Becky with the good hair lol. But she’s also interesting, the song she sings at the end was great. Yeah, she should stick to voice work.

• Other characters. Of course there are others such as Eddie (Buster’s friend), Gunter, Nana, Mrs. Crawley who are all also great. Mrs. Crawley is the source of a lot of humor in the film as she’s an old, half blind lizard. Nana is an old performer (Eddie’s grandmother), is the reason why Buster got into performance arts. Her bits were pretty great.

Different storylines. I liked the fact that the movie wasn’t just about us seeing these characters at the theater. We got to peer into their lives, albeit not a lot because there’s a lot of characters, with Buster being the main character, but what we are able to see I enjoyed. None of them are particularly new or original but I liked that they all come together for a common interest in singing. I like Johnny’s whole story, Rosita feeling like she’s stuck being a “stay at home” mom, she loves her family, but her husband is tired when he comes home, he doesn’t listen to her because he’s just not paying attention… but her love and attentiveness is obvious. Ash’s story is typical, dumped performer puts her emotions into song. Mike and his greed gets the better of him. I just think all of these stories were handled well, some were more interesting than others.

The Singing/Music. One of the most attractive things about this film is the music and the singing. The music is all pop music, identifiable if you listen to pop music, or the radio lol, but it’s cute in the movie and most of the time it’s the characters singing it. All of the songs Mean sings are amazing, she sings “Hallelujah” which Tori Kelly sang at this year’s Oscars and it gave me chills then, and it gave me chills now. Amazing. Also her last song, not sure what it was yet but it was great, her high notes… AH. Taron Egerton is also amazing, again so surprised by him but his voice… *dies* amazing. Seth MacFarlane has a great singing voice, very Sinatra in this film. Reese Witherspoon again was pleasantly a nice singer and I’ve heard Scarlett Johansson sing before (I don’t like her song on the Jungle Book soundtrack though) so I knew her singing for this particular character was going to be nice. Jennifer Hudson is the singing voice for young Nana Noodleman (the grandmother) and I almost didn’t recognize her but amazing. The soundtrack is going to be pleasant I think and it’s not one of those jarring ones. Not a lot of original sung songs I wouldn’t think but if you like covers then sure.

The Audition Scene. Usually the best thing about competition shows anyway so great stuff, it definitely adds a lot of humor and seeing these animals sing some of these songs… hilarious.

Feel Good Movie. Even if you don’t think it’s a “good” movie, I think it’s cute and it’s one of those movies that anyone can watch. It might have some humor that may go over some children’s heads but what animated movie doesn’t these days?? By the end of the film, you’ll have smiled at least once, unless you just have no room for enjoyment in your heart. I think it has it’s emotional moments to the point where you know the ending is about to get you and make you warm and fuzzy inside.

Animation. I think the animation is cute and realistic at least for Illumination’s style of animation. It’s very bright and colorful. The animals look like animals even some of them move like humans. I liked the fact that this world had every kind of animal, from giraffes and bears to snails and squids lol. The animation for the dancing was lovely and there’s a particular scene where Mike is singing at the end, you’ll see what I mean, it was animated in a great way! So entertaining! I loved the little attention to detail, for Meena’s character, she’s so shy that the animated her elephant ears to curl inward instead of outwards so she can hide behind them. Or for Ash, we see three porcupines and all of them of them look different, Ash has like sideburns, Becky with the good hair has a swoop… it was cute.

Humor. I think the film is funny. I mean it’s not hilarious but I think it has some humor that at least gets a few laughs. All of the characters have their funny moments, or lines, so no one is regulated to having all of the humor though Mrs. Crawley is probably the source for most of it. Meena’s mother and grandfather is played by Leslie Jones and Jay Pharaoh and they’re both pretty funny in their roles.

Cons:

Cliche storyline. Of course the main story isn’t anything original, we’ve seen this story many times. In fact, we’ve seen all of the storylines with these characters many times. Don’t come into this film thinking it’s about to be original because it’s not. I don’t think it’s trying to be but it’s kind of unfortunate because it doesn’t feel fresh.

Humor. While I think the movie is funny, I don’t think all of the humor hits. Fart jokes are not very funny, it depends on how they’re handled. So the movie has a lot of hits and misses with the humor.

Overall, I liked Sing. It was entertaining, I enjoyed the inclusion of the music, I liked the characters, the film was colorful and bright and I think it’s a fun time for families. However, I do think the humor doesn’t always hit and that the story is cliche and not very fresh, and while there are multiple stories, that doesn’t help the fact that it’s been done before.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

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