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Author
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Topic: Epic (2013)
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 05-27-2013 10:39 PM
This movie is my nomination for the dopiest title of 2013. I hate it when people ask what's showing, and I say "Epic," and invariably they say "What's THAT about?" And it's never easy (for me, anyway) to make a movie sound good in about two sentences, which is how long they pay attention to the answer.
Anyway, to the movie. The story is pretty basic: The main character is Mary Katherine, who goes by "M.K." Her father, who lives in a forest, has been studying the hidden world of insects and such, and is convinced there is a tiny society that guards and protects the forest from disaster; but he has trouble proving certain aspects of that world exist. We find out that the insects, etc. are on to him and keep leading him astray in his studies. As a result M.K. thinks he's off his rocker.
Meanwhile, the "life force" of the forest (in the form of a tiny bud) has to be delivered to a new caretaker each spring, or else the forest will be taken over by rot, and die. (Which is probably a pretty good, albeit simplified, explanation of what happens in real life.) The "life force" falls into the hands of M.K. by accident, and this causes her to shrink to insect size until she can deliver the precious bud to its rightful caretaker. Of course the evil "rot" characters are after the bud and will do anything to sabotage the delivery, resulting in several "epic" battle scenes (which were better than anything in Iron Man 3) before M.K. can deliver the pod, return to life-size and inform her dad that he was right all along.
My favorite character was Steven Tyler, playing against type (sort of) as a caterpillar named Nim Galuu. The "dad" character was underused, but he was kind of annoying so maybe it was for the best. I thought there would be more scenes of M.K. stuck in the "huge" real world -- although I guess that's been done already in "Honey I Shrunk the Kids."
The supporting cast was good. Beyonce Knowles was good in a limited role as a fairy or a nymph or something, plus she has a killer song over the end titles. The inevitable comic relief is supplied by two slugs, who are definitely no Pumbaa and Timon but are quite funny nonetheless.
This movie was entertaining, and my favorite thing about it was it does NOT have a big heavy-handed environmental message tacked on to it. There is no human threat, in fact people are made fun of for their slowness and clumsiness (compared to the insect world). This was refreshing.
Kids are enjoying it, and it's got plenty of action and a good story for the adults without making them feel guilty for driving a fossil-fuel powered vehicle to the theater.
The 3-D effects are just OK, nothing outstanding. It's not something I would rush to see again but a good placeholder until "Monsters University" comes along (although I do admit to a bit of nervousness about THAT one).
3.5 out of 5 stars for me.
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