Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 14/20; Emma: /20; Abbey: 18/20)
Plot: A boy who sees dead people inherits the job of reading a magic book to a centuries-dead witch from John Goodman, and along with his friends and sister, he's got to save the town from zombies.
Rapid Fire--Where Shane desperately tries to catch up and refuses to put much thought into this, write like a grown-up, or proofread himself.
Either I'm going nuts or there was a Manos: The Hands of Fate reference in this one. I really wanted to like it, and there are plenty of things to like. The creators have loads of creativity, there's a lot of fun visual humor, there's a visual style that keeps it from being just another one of those animated things, and Jon Brion does a nice job with the music. Then again, there's some crudeness and frightening imagery that made me wonder who the audience is, the humor in the dialogue doesn't work nearly as well as the visual stuff, the characters are really flat, and things just start looking stupid during a crazy climax. The story's weak. There's just not a lot of depth here, but this skims along entertainingly enough. It's darkly humorous and really probably not for children at all. Tim Burton fans might like it. The movie reminded me of him for a lot of reasons, not necessarily in a good way. Or is there a good way anymore?
My kids liked this, and I thought it was decent. It seems like there are a lot more animated films being pumped out these days, and they all seem to be about this level...watchable but not exceptional...except "Despicable Me". That sucked. I did like the ending of this and the idea that sometimes bad things happen to people (even children) for no reason, and you have to get past it and find the good in life. A 15.
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