Bereamic Awesome Movie

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

sagaceline I'm a huge fan of Disney and Pixar, so I'm usually really sceptical when I see non-Disney movies, but this was actually really good. I was really surprised by how good this was, I've never heard of it and found it by accident, so I didn't have any big expectations for it. But I was pleasantly surprised, I actually really liked it. It had a good plot, and even though it's based on a religious story it wasn't religious at all. God wasn't mentioned, and Noah was only mentioned when a lion told the other animals who built the ark. It also had a really good plot twist/surprise at the end, which was totally unexpected. And my younger brother (6 years old) didn't loose focus from it as he usually does when he watches movies, he really loves this one. It was funny, emotional and just a really nice children's movie.

dougleigh The movie is visually engaging and often funny, and it's for these reasons that our 9, 10 and 11-year-old seemed to enjoy it. But the 14-year-old laughed "at it," not "with it." Here's why, I think.While in no overtly way religious, this is a Noah's Ark story, so by definition it's a biblical story. What's amazing about All Creature Big and Small is the implausibility of it all. The basic setup is that Noah subcontracts who's "on" and "off" the Ark. The Lion - a spitting image of The Lion King, who - first decrees that omnivores can't eat herbivores. Then he gets the final say over what animals can and can't board the Ark. (As for Noah himself: like all humans, he's conspicuously absent throughout movie.) After the flood eventually comes, some on the "out list" stowaway aboard the Ark. So far, standard kids fare.One creature excluded from boarding the Ark, Finny, is a constantly-worried pessimist while his daughter, Hazel, is a silver-lining optimist. All this proceeds entertainingly enough. But when push comes to shove toward the end of the movie and their lives are imminently threatened, things fall apart. The pessimist learns the value of trust and kinship, while the optimist comes to appreciate the value of force and decisiveness. But rather than leaving things there, the movie makers decide to moralize the story, metamorphosing the now-extinct species into one fit for the post-flood world. The problem, of course, is that evolution - at least as it's currently understood - does not affect a single generation but rather occurs over thousands, if not millions, of years.On the surface, this deus ex machina is a simple contrivance to create a happy ending for all (excepting the villains of the story). But more deeply it seems to suggest not only that Creationism and Evolution each have their merits, but also that they are not mutually exclusive of one another. How? By force-fitting a "happy ending," allowing *all* creatures great and small (except the most minor and villainous) to survive. The means by which they survive is wrapped up in their silly (and inexplicably previously-unrecognized) abilities: breathing under water, farting or squirting a noxious fluid, or an oversized slug turning into a whale. These creatures evolve within a single generation, a resolution that is neither satisfying nor plausible. No one we care about dies. Instead, I suspect that it was not the producer's intention, but by fictionalizing the story of the non-fittest animals, they debase the entire argument of Creationism. So instead of crafting a story in which Creationism and Evolution could plausibly co-exist, by relying on inexplicable Acts of God, the movie debases the prior ideology while making a mockery of the latter.The movie evades death - particularly the death of a species - in its wrong-headed portrayal of natural selection as something that can redeem an individual life, rather than that which governs the continued existence of a species. Though clearly anti-scientific, the movie might be forgiven as mindless entertainment for kids. The net impact for adults, however, is that in attempting to appeal to both Creationists/Individualists and Evolutionists/Collectivists, neither narrative is coherent. For some such beliefs in life, there can be no viable middle ground.

one-nine-eighty This is your standard Noah's ark story as the title may elude to (albeit the title varies depending on which country you find yourself watching the film). The king of the animals, a lion, announces to the other animals that a biblical flood is on it's way to wipe out all the life from the planet. There is a plan to save the animals as an ark has been built to carry them for forty days and forty nights until the flood has gone. The animals each have to meet with the acceptance committee to see if they warrant a place on the ark - it seems only certain animals will be saved and unfortunately for the main characters of this film "Nestrian's" (fluffy neon animals with big snouts that walk on two legs and excrete a cloud of smoke when they are scared) haven't been selected for safety. Rather than face the flood and sure death head on, the Nestrian father and son combination trick their way onto the ark with some Grymps (wolf like solitary creatures, walk on 4 legs and likes to get angry). The child Nestrian and Grymp wander off exploring only to realise that they have left the ark and have been left behind to face the flood. At this point of the film it turns into a journey story, the children try to find a way to avoid the flood water while following the ark and the single parents on the ark try their best to get the ark turned around to rescue the kids. The overall moral is teamwork because alone respectively the two groups, kids and adults, wont be able to succeed by working as a team they should be able to survive.The story isn't epic by any stretch of the imagination as it's based on a story from the bible we've seen many times before, it mirrors other animated films like "Ice Age" and "Finding Nemo" but all the same its harmless fun. Fortunately the film doesn't try and force religion onto it's audiences it simply takes inspiration from a biblical story and goes off on it's own tangent using the inspiration as platform only. The animation was cute and colourful and while the story wasn't the most original the dialogue was amusing at times and there was a mix of gags that both adult and child could find amusing. The clever thing about the film was that as a cynical adult I knew that random animals with names I'd never heard of wouldn't be saved by the end of the film but there was a great twist which showed what happened to the animals God and Noah didn't save. Ultimately the ending is happy and my cynicism was slightly surprised. This is a European film which has been released in various countries (as mentioned by the title variances) however there is nothing lost and the unknown actors doing their turn for the voices carry off the film with charm. There are occasional problems with the animation but let's face it, this was made with a lot less budget than your next Pixar film is likely to get and for what was invested this is a good way to spend a quiet weekend day with audiences of different ages. I have no problem awarding this 6 out of 10, not entirely my cup of tea but not an awful waste of time by any stretch of the imagination.

Andrew Commencing the movie defense in 3... 2... 1!I, like probably many others, thought this was a generic animated motion picture "for the entire family". I was so wrong. So very wrong. Not only was it not generic; it was way better than expected. After all, it was so good, I am giving it a 9!Okay, let's start with the premise. It is very simple. A single mother and a single father are separated from their daughter and son (respectively), and need to get back together. The daughter is a hunter-type animal who works alone, and the son is a timid-type animal with a natural gift for building things, and a love for warm hugs. It is one of THOSE movies, with the moral being "we need to work together!" It is, as I said, simple, and not terribly original.Now, the reason I give this movie a 9 out of 10. Despite the simple old-as-dirt moral, the way it is HANDLED is great. Morals take a backseat, while the front seat gets firmly occupied by the action, the gags, and the dialogue. It is like the movie team were given complete creative freedom to come up with as many interesting scenes as possible, and they done all of them. The timing of the action is great, the lines are great, the voice acting is great, and not a single "funny" moment felt forced (to me anyway, some people are much more picky). Actually, this movie reminds me a lot of Penguins of Madagascar, in the way it's structured (simple moral, but runs on non-stop gags).The animation has to be mentioned somewhere, so might as well mention it here. It is really good. The only parts where I thought things looked "imperfect", was every time tree branches were used. This animated movie does not have the best looking branches out there. Wood aside, all the textures and atmospheric effects are perfectly fine. And in my books "perfectly fine" equates to "nothing being wrong". The animation itself deserves a 9 as well.You are probably asking at this point: "But what about the Ark? What about Noah? How are those elements used?" Well, I did not mark this review as containing spoilers, and I am not delivering any. Let's just say, the way the "Ark" part of the story is handled, is the most creative way I ever it seen it handled in any movie. And I'll leave it at that.I won't spoil the ending either, but I will tell you that I did not see it coming. That was some truly great cartoon writing, and I was pleasantly surprised. Now, to reassure you somewhat, I wasn't born yesterday, and seen and read hundreds of stories. I have frames of reference, and I have developed that thing called "taste". The ending of this movie was GOOD. Trust me on that.Last, but not least, the movie's title. It was changed for every country it was released in, if I am not mistaken. And it is funny, albeit in a sad way. It can instill the wrong impression upon the potential audience (aka, you), that the people who made this movie did not have any idea what they did. I assure you, the naming problem in no way reflects the actual content, because the movie is great. After all, if it wasn't, I wouldn't give it a 9 out of 10.Watch it. Now. Don't be afraid. It's really good.