MOVIES REVIEWS

Epic Movie Review 2

ByChiara Spagnoli Gabardi

May 24, 2013

Title: Epic

Director: Chris Wedge

Starring: Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler, Amanda Seyfried, Pitbull, Beyoncé Knowles, Josh Hutcherson, Judah Friedlander, Colin Farrell, Aziz Ansari, Blake Anderson, Christoph Waltz..

Seems like it’s going to be an Epic Win for the American 3D computer animated fantasy adventure produced by Blue Sky Studios, (‘Ice Age’ and ‘Rio’).

‘Epic’ – directed by Chris Wedge, (‘Ice Age’ and ‘Robots’) – is based on William Joyce’s children book ‘The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.’ The film portrays the reversed coming-of-age story of a teenage girl who doesn’t believe in magic.

Mary Katherine lives in a cabin in the woods with her father, Professor Bomba, and a pug named Ozzy. Professor Bomba has long studied a group of warriors who live in the forest and protect it as guardians of good. One day MK will set out in the woods and embark upon a truly EPIC adventure, that will overturn her prejudice on the existence of an enchanting world.

The battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, in the original version, stars the voices of Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O.Dowd, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler and Beyoncé Knowles.

The 3D animation is magnificent. The environmental theme somehow evokes the 1992 animated Australian-American movie directed by Bill Kroyer, ‘FernGully: The Last Rainforest.’ But ‘Epic’ has all the necessary ingredients to make the tale contemporary and universal. Love isn’t neglected on many levels and the feature of the outsider girl being catapulted in a world of fairies slightly resembles Don Bluth’s 1994 ‘Thumbelina.’ Just as the damsel scarcely half as long as a thumb, MK bands together with a rag-tag group of characters in order to pursue her quest.

This cute animated fairytale bubbles up in the sunshine of optimism: fountains of joy and good will, with occasionally a splatter of anger and here and there a healing spray of sympathy and pity.

Technical: A+

Acting: A

Story: B+

Overall: A-

Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Epic Movie Review

By Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi, is a film critic, culture and foreign affairs reporter, screenwriter, film-maker and visual artist. She studied in a British school in Milan, graduated in Political Sciences, got her Masters in screenwriting and film production and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York and Los Angeles. Chiara’s “Material Puns” use wordplay to weld the title of the painting with the materials placed on canvas, through an ironic reinterpretation of Pop-Art, Dadaism and Ready Made. She exhibited her artwork in Milan, Rome, Venice, London, Oxford, Paris and Manhattan. Chiara works as a reporter for online, print, radio and television and also as a film festival PR/publicist. As a bi-lingual journalist (English and Italian), who is also fluent in French and Spanish, she is a member of the Foreign Press Association in New York, the Women Film Critics Circle in New York, the Italian Association of Journalists in Milan and the Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean. Chiara is also a Professor of Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts at IED University in Milan.

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