EPIC Review

Maybe I am growing out of my animated film loving stage. I'm finding myself bored with the environments created and feel that the originality in these films are lacking big time. Hell, even Pixar is rehashing old ideas in hopes that they can still be as magical as before. But maybe it's not just me, and maybe, just maybe, these animated movies just really fucking suck.

Take EPIC for example. Our main character M.K. (Amanda Seyfried) has daddy problems and is forced to move in with him after her mother dies. It's not like her dad beats or anything like that. No, the biggest problem with her dad (Jason Sudekis) is that people thinks he is crazy because he is a scientist that studies the Leafmen race.

We have officially ran out of ideas when we start calling a race "Leafmen."

But there are apparently such thing as Leafmen, and their goal is simple - protect the forest from Boggons, an evil race of creatures that shoot deadly arrows. The Leafmen army are all about teamwork, which is why one soldier, Nod (Josh Hutcherson) quits. This quite pisses off the Leafmen leader Ronin (Colin Farrell), who happens to be banging the queen of the forest, Queen Tara (Beyonce).

(SIDE NOTE: I wonder if Beyonce being queen has anything to do with some sort of Illuminati presence in the forest. Maybe the sequel.)

Queen Tara is about to choose the heir to her throne. The leaf pod she chooses will be her heir. This made no sense to me, but then again, the first thirty minutes is a lot to take in. However, the Boggins, led by SS-Colonel Hans Lan-I mean, Mandrake (Christoph Waltz) and his son Dagda (Blake Anderson) attack Queen Tara and the other Leafman. Tara dies, and magically falls on top of M.K., who's running away from home at the same time. M.K. finds this pod as well, and finds herself to have shrunk to Leafmen-size.

The hero's journey, as one might say, is supposed to be an epic-styled film, but nothing feels epic about EPIC. There are too many characters that add nothing to the story. Chris O'Dowd and Aziz Ansari play a snail and a slug that are the unfunniest characters in any animated film. Steven Tyler plays a glow-worm that keeps scrolls of things that happen. Pitbull plays a bullfrog, so I guess when he is trying to keep a party going, animated movies pay for his electric.

But how can a movie called EPIC feel epic when I'm not even sure the characters know that they only take up a small area of the forest? The script is so idiotic and boring that nothing even makes sense. I finally figured out the story a half-hour in, so I don't know how the hell a child is supposed to figure it out.

The characters in the film don't do anything to root for them. They're all know-it-all little fucking brats. There isn't even a funny joke in the script. I was surrounded by little children and they laughed so little that they actually left at the trailer for THE SMURFS 2 a lot more.

But EPIC's biggest problem is that, at times, it becomes a remake of AVATAR. The final fight scene looks like the Navi riding dragons. And to make matters worse? You barely see any of the fight scene. The film takes its weakest link, M.K., and tries to make her intro some kind of hero. There's even a scene when she kisses a Leafman.

Yeah, we might have ran out of originality, but I'd be the first in line to buy human-on-Leafman porn.