For my birthday my sister, brother and I went to see Epic. (And it was extra nice because my brother paid for my ticket as a birthday present~)



Epic...what to say about Epic... Well, first off I enjoyed it! Worth seeing, I'd say. Maybe not in theaters, but I'm definitely gonna buy it.

The obvious comparison is of course to Fern Gully. I don't want to go into that too much, since I know this comparison has been beaten to death. So, in short: In some ways Epic is better than Fern Gully, and in some ways Fern Gully is better than Epic. Now don't think I'm saying FG is a masterpiece--it's not, it's an amazingly bad movie--but like with anything there are things and elements to FG that are actually brilliant and/or interesting ideas.
What I'm trying to say is that that FG and E kind of had what the other needed. E needed FG's focus and balance, and FG needed...well FG needed a lot from E.

Epic was a little too black and white. It had a few moments that told us about the balance between decay and growth, but it needed to be played up so much more. Nature is never ever so black and white as it was portrayed in the movie. I did love that they had a few moments between the bad guy and his son; those were wonderful, but they ended far too soon. They teased at some heart for them, but then they take that away and move back to the main characters. >:^/ Also the ending left a lot to be desired.

Honestly the two main characters were pretty lackluster, I didn't respond to them (also the snail and slug were just overkill, they needed to go). That might just be me, because I gravitate to older mature characters; my instant favorites being the Queen and Ronin. I loved those two, they were great. (Tempted to draw theeeem.) I would have loved a movie just about the Queen, Ronin, the bad guy and his son. I would have still liked the wacky dad to be included (in a much smaller role), because he would have brought in the human world and tied the two together (you know, in a balance kind of thing).

But, overlooking the plot and character problems there were quite a few things I loved about the movie! The designs, the animation, the feel and look, etc. Aesthetic things. The kind of eye candy I adore!
There were also a few plot elements that I did respond to. The widower eccentric father, Ronin trying to play father/mentor to the lead guy, the relationship between the Queen and Ronin, the bad guy and his son, etc. Also I enjoyed how the fairies/leaf men were out of phase with the rest of reality (I dig Star Trek-y details like that).

I really hope it doesn't sound like I'm just dumping on the movie, because I did enjoy it! Overall, it's a good movie. Is it a great movie? Nope. Is it a bad movie? Also nope. It's the kind of pleasant movie that I'd throw on pretty often just because it's easy to watch with some cool characters and gorgeous animation.