Animal Crackers (2017)

No, that year is not an error; despite U.S. production, this movie was first released in France three years ago, followed by China two years ago, before finally reaching American eyes via Netflix last week. I had heard about it while it was in production, because auteur Scott Christian Sava put his now-concluded webcomic, The Dreamland Chronicles, on hiatus for that purpose. (You can see TDC characters in the Blue Dream Studios logo sequence.) For the same reason, along with a recommendation from a friend, I took interest in AC, which has had probably the poorest overall reception of anything reviewed on this blog but is still getting a lot of Netflix views.

Owen (John Krasinski), nephew of circus owner Buffalo Bob (James Arnold Taylor), sees little choice but to take a lousy factory job in order to appease a CEO (Wallace Shawn) before marrying his daughter Zoe (Emily Blunt, still John's beloved on and off screen). When tragedy strikes the circus, Owen receives a box of what he first takes to be ordinary animal crackers, but eating one magically turns him into the depicted animal and, thankfully, generates his personal human-form cracker to change back. Now he is urged, not least by Zoe and their young daughter (Lydia Rose Taylor), to drum up business for the circus again by performing various animal acts himself. But his other uncle, Horatio (Ian McKellen), who left Bob on bad terms, will stop at nothing to reclaim that success for himself.

If you're scratching your head or rolling your eyes at some of the above, guess what: I skimped on the more inane details. At quite a few points, I thought, "Why did(n't) they...?" I came up with two answers for all those questions: (1) Sava wrote the graphic novel on which this is based for little kids such as his own first and foremost, so adult characters tend to show all the wisdom of children; and (2) realistic sensibilities might have prevented it from getting off the ground. In retrospect, TDC also was more interesting for its visuals and starting premise than for its story.

Dumb family movies can appeal to me anyway, but this one suffers from clumsiness, especially in the first act. It takes rather long just to establish who the protagonist is -- and considerably longer to establish that the animals are the main draw of this circus. In fact, the human acts are so unpopular that I suspect that only altruism keeps those performers employed. Why not share the magically regenerating animal crackers with all of them? Oh, right; see above.

I have to admit that I'd feel a lot better about circuses with animals if I knew that they were willingly transformed humans. They'd be more humane and probably more of a show. Personally, I'm rather big on stories of people assuming multiple shapes, so naturally, things picked up for me in Act 2. 'Fraid I haven't seen Madagascar 3 to compare. Some viewers complain about the climax losing focus a little, but I beg to differ: That's when it really comes alive. Heck, if you stream AC and get bored, I recommend skipping to the first sight of a shifted bad guy.

I think the most impressive thing about AC is that a fledgling studio gained such a star-studded cast. In addition to the above, we have Danny DeVito as the lead clown and narrator, Sylvester Stallone as a daredevil, Raven-Symoné as a bungling factory scientist, Patrick Warburton as a toadying saboteur, Gilbert Gottfried as Horatio's chief henchman (tho he claims the reverse), Harvey Fierstein as a fortune teller, and Tara Strong as Bob's wife and Horatio's crush. OK, some of them are has-beens, but others must have required some string pulling.

The least impressive thing? I'd say the musical aspect. There are decent preexisting songs on the soundtrack but only two original numbers, neither likely to stand apart from the film. Furthermore, as much as I like McKellen's acting, his singing is barely more than speech, and The Return of Jafar did not make me eager for more Gottfried singing. At least DeVito didn't join in. Perhaps it's just as well that AC wasn't widely released in the same year as that other circus musical, The Greatest Showman.

Sava has not become the next Andy Weir in terms of transitioning from a webcomic to a more mainstream hit, but AC retains enough promise that I hope he does better next time. As it is, I like it better than The Boxtrolls and about as well as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which gets a subtle cameo herein). Maybe its ratings will improve in the weeks to come. For now, I endorse it primarily as a way to keep children occupied for 105 minutes.