Review of The Peanuts Movie (2015) by Grant D — 28 Nov 2015

I honestly never thought I'd see this. A full length theatrical film of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts characters 15 years after the passing of creator Charles Schultz. I also didn't think I'd ever see a studio dare use 3D computer animation over the traditional hand drawn comic strip style. And I didn't think it would be as good as it ultimately did.

I'm a huge Peanuts fan, ever since I first saw the famous Christmas special when I was around four years old. The varied personalities and laid back relatable stories set it apart from most cartoons I watched back then. Many feared a new CG film would change the tone of what the franchise was (like what has happened with The Smurfs) and thankfully those justifiable fears have been put to rest because this is as pure a Charlie Brown story as I could have hoped for.

One can call this a Peanuts greatest hits collection and they'd be right, but that isn't a weakness of the film. Much like several Peanuts specials I've seen before, this film takes many popular gags from the comic strip and put them together as part of a bigger main story.

The main story here is Charlie Brown trying to get the attention of the little red haired girl who just moved in next door to him and prove that he is a true winner. But of course poor Charlie Brown always has the worst luck. What I loved seeing was that Charlie always seems to come up short, but it's not due to contrived circumstance, reckless thinking, or an antagonist getting in his way. A lot of time it's from Charlie just being a good person and doing what he feels is the right thing at the cost of him gaining any popularity. One scene involving his sister, Sally, got me rather chocked up.

But wait! Snoopy has his own story going on. Or more like his own fantasies. While he is helping Charlie with his struggles with the new girl, Snoopy takes those situations and applies them to a romance novel he's writing that showcases him as World War 1 fighter pilot hero, The Flying Ace, trying to win the affection of a fellow pilot named Fifi and finally taking down his arch nemesis, The Red Baron. The Flying Ace scenes are really fun albeit a bit overused. Would have like to see more of the supporting kid characters interact and trim down the Red Baron stuff a little.

And the animation in this movie is totally hypnotic. I've seen it twice and I just want to watch it again just for the animation style alone. It is 3D computer animation, but it still feels like the old cartoons. The frame rate is lowered to give a more 2D flow and the facial expressions have a strong hand drawn style. It's new yet very familiar. There isn't any other animated film that looks quite like it. Even the music is mostly faithful to the original shorts. Vince Guaraldi's score plays throughout. There a few pop songs in there, but they have the appropriate sound and tone.

This is definitely one of the better animated films I've in the past few years and is great way to introduce the kids of today to the Peanuts franchise as well as pleasing older fans like myself.

And be sure to stay during the credits.

Score: 8.5/10.