Disappointing. With elements of two recent animations (FERDINAND and COCO*) in the mix (pacifist bullfighter/ musician goes to the land of the dead in search of tru-love), director Jorge R. Guitiérrez proves less in charge than lead producer Guillermo del Toro. And that’s a problem as we get the worst of del Toro’s otherwise considerable style: uninterrupted visual excess. Mexican tradition is plenty elaborate to begin with, and the death enraptured theme tricky to pull off as family fare, but here, every frame is overloaded to the point of sensation fatigue. And it panders to a presumed Stateside commercial base, book-ending the main story with a pointless museum field-trip for a handful of trouble-making U.S.A. school kids. Worse, back in Mexico, the generically feisty heroine comes across in much the same contempo manner. While around her, the film pitches more pop reference gags in dialogue & music than a DreamWorks product. As often the case in these aggressively overactive CGI films, the best things in it are the title or end credit sequences (here the credits) which throwback to old-fashioned hand-drawn techniques (or reasonable facsimiles thereof). And what a difference they make! Clarifying & refining the image; exciting & even more stylish/stylized, but with space to breath. Could it be sold to today’s audience? Pretty iffy.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Not seen here, but COCO/’17 was rapturously received. As for FERDINAND, tough to top Disney’s 1938 short FERDINAND THE BULL, available in various collections.
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