MANILA, Philippines - ‘Epic’ is a beautiful animated film that invites you to believe in a miniature world where good versus evil is a daily struggle. It is a world inhabited by Leaf Men, a frog, and a snail and a slug.
The balance of nature is at stake as Queen Tara (Beyonce Knowles) meets her demise during an attack led by Mandrake (Christoph Waltz). Mandrake wants to take control of the pod that Queen Tara herself has chosen to carry on her work as protector of the forest.
Stumbling upon it all is Mary Katherine (Amanda Seyfried), whose mother died and is visiting her father Professor Bomba (Jason Sudeikis) with the hope of saving whatever is left of their family. Professor Bomba is believed to be mad by those who know him as he obsesses finding the very same world Queen Tara and her constituents inhabit.
With her final words, Queen Tara instructs M.K. to deliver the pod to Nim Galuu (Steven Tyler), a caterpillar who acts as historian of the universe. Helping M.K. out is Ronin (Colin Farrell), leader of the Leaf Men and Nod (Josh Hutcherson), the carefree Leaf Men rookie.
While the film is certainly interesting to look at with every minute detail of the forest coming to life, not much can be said about the main characters. M.K.’s personal struggle with her father isn’t given that much depth while her love story with Nod is nothing but a tease.
It says a lot when the most memorable characters are the snail Grub (Chris O’Dowd) and the slug Mub (Aziz Ansari). The screen seems to light up whenever they appear and you can’t just wait to hear what they would say next.
My other issue with the film is the title itself. When I first saw trailers of the film, I was concerned that calling it “Epic†might be too much and unfortunately, that’s just the case. The story is just good and the animation is at best, at par with previous animated films from Blue Sky Studios such as the “Ice Age†series.
The film is inspired by William Joyce’s book “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs†and I’m sure there could have been better titles for the film based off of that.