Review of The Little Prince (2015) by Colginator — 08 Aug 2016

Proving that Disney doesn't have a monopoly on adapting classic stories with whimsy and wonder, Mark Osborne has successfully brought 'The Little Prince' to life through a beautiful mixture of computer generated and stop motion animation. It's already an instant classic, with a thought provoking, multi-layered story and some visually stunning animation.

We start off the film in a CGI world where a Little Girl (Mackenzie Foy) has just moved houses so that she can be within correct district to attend a prestigious school. This is all part of her Mother's (Rachel McAdams) life plan to turn her in to "a wonderful grown up". This life plan includes planning out literally her entire life, giving her daughter clear instructions of what she should be doing down to every hour, including a summer break that includes nothing but revising from text books.

But all this changes when her old, eccentric neighbour, The Aviator (Jeff Bridges) enters her life and begins to tell her the story of The Little Prince (Riley Osborne). Thus we are introduced to a stop motion animated world, telling a tale of how the Little Prince fell in love with a Rose (Marion Cotillard) and then travelled across the stars meeting many strange characters, including the Businessman who seeks to own ever star (Albert Brooks), the conceited man who believes all should admire him (Ricky Gervais) and the Fox (James Franco) who the Prince seeks to tame.

Much is added to the original novella, but director Mark Osborne ensures that the film never strays too far from the original novellas tone or themes. Instead the messages of the novella, such as needing to explore in order to learn and grow as a person, are given an entire new layer through the girls interactions with the Aviator. On top of this every voice performance (which includes the directors own son playing the Little Prince) seems perfectly cast. This includes a great performance from Jeff Bridges who is able to balance both the eccentric and heartfelt side of the Aviator.

Both of the animation styles complement each other very well. In the CGI world there's a lot of emphasis on the blandness of what growing up can be like with grey colours and the lack of any uniqueness or identity. The houses in the neighbourhood are so similar that the mother even drives past her own home since you can't tell them apart. In contrast the stop motion style is so full of life and colour. It's as if the pages are literally coming to life with the stop motion focusing on details like shadows and the crinkled paper look for each of the characters.

The film does falter a little within its third act that favours trading out its focus on its characters and story, instead having the girl travelling on an exciting adventure across the stars to save the Little Prince. It never detracts from either the messages of the film or of the original book and it's still an entertaining third act. But it does depart from the rest of the films unique and subtle beauty, in favour of an action sequence that feels out of tone to the rest of the film. Although this is only a slight misstep as the films finale is emotional and leaves a deep impact that is bound to resonate with viewers of any age.