The animated world brings many masterpieces, acting as a medium to bring imagination to life and craft impossible things that live action has not quite caught up to. Given the intended audiences, new worlds and characters are crafted in hopes of delivering fun adventure, potential catchy soundtracks, and of course lessons that can help refresh the morals tarnished by time if left unchecked. This weekend, the latest adventure attempts to take the stage in the form of a band of misfit creations with the potential to change the world. Will it be another blockbuster hit to withstand the test of time, or is it just more merchandising in a desperate plea to stand up to Disney. Robbie K here giving his thoughts0. on:
Director:
Kelly Asbury
Writers:
Alison Peck (screenplay by), Sun-min Kim (based on characters by)
Stars:
Kelly Clarkson, Nick Jonas, Janelle Monáe
LIKES:
Creative Characters
Colorful Environment
Cute Atmosphere
Voice Cast
Messages
Music
SUMMARY: As mentioned in the opening, the animated medium offers the ability to let imagination flourish and create some unique looking characters. Ugly Doll takes the concept of "mistakes" and turns them into oddly shaped combinations that hold much value for future action figures and dolls. Moxy (Clarkson) and her crew are odd and not the most detailed, but their personalities are etched into the design which goes in time with the world crafted. This world may not be the most realistic or detail oriented, but it's color, angles, and sort of Hodge podge approach lead to a mish-mash world of fun that would be beautiful as a theme park. Ugly Dolls manages to add personality into each of the two worlds, mirroring the approach to life each collective bunch represents. Regardless of which place you prefer, the movie holds the cute factor that is intended for the key audience, creating the safe, family friendly environment that parents would like their young ones to see.
To help further bring the world to life, a talented voice cast has at least been recruited with singers, comedians, and sassy actresses to assist with bringing that last bit of spark to the characters needed. Clarkson, Jonas, and Monae are the ones who take point using their vocal talents to not only deliver the simplistic writing of the film and even more deliver the lines of the soundtrack this movie was focused on. The variety of voice talents were marginally used well and balanced to make sure every character got some screen time.
Through whatever means though, the movie has two big selling points that are the selling points with this film. The first are the morals about inner beauty, self-worth, and believing in yourself. Cliché? Absolutely, but an important lesson for the young generation, and their chaperones to learn in hopes of establishing new grounds for self-confidence. That emotional gimmick, touched my heart personally, but for many of the group it may not quite penetrate the cerebral cortex like they wanted. Instead the morals will be lost to the toe tapping tunes that this movie is going to use. Much like Frozen, the soundtrack is going to be more memorable than the movie, with a number of reprises used to expand the soundtrack ever so slightly. Plenty of these songs have much emotion, but it's going to be the bubble gum pop beat that gets your kids going, bump up sales, and potentially get overplayed
DISLIKES:
Very Simplistic Plot
Other Characters Only Scratched
Rushed Story
Little Impasse
Unremarkable Moments
Too geared on kids
Too much focus on the music
SUMMARY: When it comes to animated kids films there is a balance that I look for in my reviews so that they may bring more people into the film. Ugly Dolls struggled with this for me. It starts with the simplistic plot, essentially a linear plot that holds very few curves to mix things up. It's simple story is cute and endearing, but lacks some of the fundamental moments that Disney does so well. Most of the characters do contribute in the form of comedy, but the character development is lacking for the others, leading to merely colorful outlines that will be perfect for action figures. Perhaps this could have been accomplished if the plot did not seem so rushed, trying to get from start to finish in the rapid time limit they set. In doing this, the impasses for our dolls were not that impressive and easily bypassed, the threat level essentially nullified by the cute antics of our group. The result is that the movie does not quite have the most memorable moments that will stay with us until the end of time.
Why is this the case? I believe the two sources of weakness that took away from this movie are the kid focused atmosphere and the fixation on music. Ugly Dolls is perfect for the early aged viewers in terms of lacking any really scary or haunting features. Yet, in removing the threats the plot became a little too boring as the adventure just devolved into sort of an elementary school education lesson. Taking the adventure out of this movie therefore limits it for older members who will need to focus on the occasional adult joke and watching their young ones smiles. In addition, the music was too much the theme of this film. With all the singers casted, it's not surprising they wanted to turn out a soundtrack, and sure enough the studio has put a lot of investment in the toe tapping music to boost sales. Despite the catchy music, that focus took away much from the story as mentioned above, all in the name of cramming as many songs as possible to again boost their sales.
The VERDICT:
Overall Ugly Dolls is cute and I loved the themes, world building and energy built into its design and the presentation. Yet, the movie fails to find the balance and sense of adventure that others have held from other studios with bigger budgets. More story planning was needed, and less focus on limited audiences would have been nice, with a little more maturity ingrained to help out. Yet, the movie really needed to steer away from the focus on merchandising to leave an imprint and be known as one of the greats. It is not horrible at all, but the limited audience scope is going to be the main hesitation to go to the theaters for this. Instead, you might be better off buying the sound track and waiting for this to hit home.