Epic (2013): Mormon Movie Review

Quality:
   My wife is an awesome hair stylist and so she usually works on Saturdays.  That means me and the boys usually have Saturdays to have fun (barring a ward movie or service project).  This Saturday we went to see Epic!  I was a bit nervous after my experience with Wreck-It Ralph, but it was a real great time!

   In Epic a teenager named Mary Katherine (Amanda Seyfriend) finds herself transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group characters in order to save their world, and ours.

 
   I was a bit hesitant at first since I wasn’t a big fan of Ice Age, and Blue Sky doesn’t have a lot of experience with animating humans.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The world Blue Sky has created is intricately detailed and immensely beautiful because of it.  The animations of Mary Katherine are fluid and her idiosyncratic movements capture the essence of an unsure teenager in a new world perfectly.

   To whole cast is pretty strong.  I was amazing that I enjoyed Amanda Seyfried as much as I did since I credit her joining Russell Crowe to hand in hand destroy my favorite songs of Les Miserables.  She was excellent, along with Josh Hutcherson, Colin Farrell, and Christoph Waltz who plays the destroyer of the forest, Mandrake.  Your kids might not recognize Christoph, but he the unintentional star of a few of Quentin Tarantino’s movies, including Django Unchained.  Even Beyonce’ brings to life her character of Queen Tara, even though she only has a few speaking scenes.  I usually equate Beyonce’s acting talents to the portrayal of her on the Saturday Night Live “Prince Show” skits.

 

Content:   

   Although there is some scary imagery my boys had a great time.  I wasn’t concerned with any of the content, but it should be noted there is some fighting and it is implied that some soldiers die and one main character dies in the arms of another.  The rating is PG, but I really can’t remember the last movie that was rated G in a while even though the content seems about the same.

   Check out my favorite trailer of the movie.  I love Owl City so it was an easy choice.  But there are some great jokes too.