REVIEW: ‘Sing’: Hollywood’s latest vanilla-flavored kiddie flick
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I hate it when people try to describe a movie to me by calling it “cute”. That really doesn’t tell me anything about the quality of the film being discussed. It doesn’t tell me if it’s good or bad, and it usually puts images of adorable puppies or fluffy kitties in my heady. Awww … kitties…
Trouble is, I can’t, for the life of me, come up with a better word to describe “Sing” than “cute”. “Sing” is the latest Hollywood kiddie flick. It features cutesy anthropomorphic animals singing cutesy pop songs, with cutesy pratfalls and gags on hand to extract laughs from the audience. It’s not bad. It’s not very good. It’s a very vanilla, non-offensive family film that will keep your kids occupied for like ninety minutes, but doesn’t offer much more than that.
”Sing” introduces us to Buster Moon (voiced by Matthew McConaughey), a theater owner who’s on the verge of losing his venue. Desperate for a hit, he stages a singing contest, attracting animals from all walks of life to come and compete. The hopefuls include a mother pig run ragged by her family (Reese Witherspoon), the son of a gorilla gangster (Taron Egerton), a punk rock porcupine (Scarlett Johansson) and a mouse who wants to be Frank Sinatra (Seth Macfarlane).
While the contestants rehearse, Buster and his protege, Meena (Tori Kelly), a shy elephant with a glorious voice, work themselves silly to keep the wheels from coming off the production. Meanwhile, side plots abound conflicts arise and the very possibility of Buster staging his show hangs in the balance. Will the show go on? Will Buster finally find success? I get the feeling you probably know the answer.
”Sing” isn’t a bad movie. It’s brightly-colored and briskly paced. The musical numbers are enjoyable. The movie even managed to get me to laugh a couple times. I loved the gags involving a quintet of J-Pop singing foxes. As far as kiddie flicks, “Sing” isn’t the worst thing ever.
It’s just not all that great, either. The story is jumbled and disjointed, an effect of juggling so many characters and their corresponding storylines. The plot unspools exactly as you would expect. It’s a kid’s movie, but that doesn’t excuse lazy writing and storytelling that’s a knock-off of other better movies.
And technically, “Sing” doesn’t really stand out, either. The animation is smooth and fluid, but it’s no more impressive than something you could see in any other animated movie and it’s not nearly as beautiful as something from Pixar.
The best thing about “Sing” is, unsurprisingly, the musical numbers. From covers of familiar pop songs to a ripping version of “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John, the songs are easily the highlight and the best reason to spend ninety minutes watching this flick. By far.
Overall, “Sing” is about as average and vanilla as kids’ movies get. It’s got some good music and a number of entertaining musical numbers. The characters are appealing and the voice acting to very solid. But you’ve probably seen five or six movie just like it. But, if you need something to keep the kids occupied for an hour-and-a-half, this could be just the ticket.