The Peanuts Movie 

Review Written By Adolph Vega

3D

The 3D presentation within this movie is split between two sections.The first section is focused on the Peanuts crew, and the second section is focused on the flying moments with Snoopy. The Peanuts characters are presented with three dimensional character models and a world that is rendered in 3D. Sadly, the stereoscopic element is subtle and not interesting to look at. It only appears to be three layers of 3D with the main Peanuts crew in the mid-layer of 3D, and different environmental aspects appearing in the background or foreground. Honestly I forgot that the movie was in 3D, because it's so subtle and underwhelming for a good amount of the movie. In the Snoopy sections of the movie the 3D aspect looked better as objects flew from the background to the foreground, and generally looked nice, but far from being impressive. Honestly the movie looked okay in 3D but lacks memorable scenes and any direction to make it seem special in 3D. I would suggest you save your money and not watch this movie in 3D because you won’t be missing much.

Final Score:

Terrible 3D Watch in 2D

Movie

The Peanuts cartoon series is something that I didn't appreciate until recently. This movie is the first full-length movie featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts crew. As previously mentioned, this movie can be separated into two main parts – one with Charlie Brown and his friends, and the second part with Snoopy and his imaginative flying stories against the Red Baron. The main story with Charlie Brown is focused on him falling in love with a red headed girl (who is never given a proper name) who moved into town. The movie is completely retro and not ashamed to be set in the pre computer, cell phone era and seems identical to the previous TV specials in its setting. This decision to keep it retro is interesting because the graphics design is modern but all the children are using rotary landlines to talk to one another and using pen and paper to write essays. This movie stays 100% true to the original comic strip / TV specials time period.

The secondary story revolves around Snoopy and his many imaginative stories of him flying against the Red Baron. The movie has a fast pace as the main story and Snoopy fantasy scenes weave in and out of each other in a smooth fashion. I do feel that the movie overplays the Snoopy / Red Baron segments, and it begins to feel like filler. The main story with Charlie Brown has several subplots, which revolve around his love of the red headed girl. Some elements of the story are not fully developed, and some key story elements are dropped when it moves on to the next story element. This leads to the movie having a few plot holes that sadly become a small distraction to the viewer, as some storylines don't have a proper conclusion. The movie covers a large amount of time, and it's jarring to start the movie in one season of the year and for it to end in another. The issues I have with the story are not at all related to the characters they are wonderful. The entire Peanuts crew is part of this movie and they all seem just like their TV show specials. The writing and dialog between the characters perfectly matches previous versions of the TV show or comic strip and all the characters work well together. Linus is my favorite character, and is wise beyond his years and gives Charlie Brown wonderful advice. Charlie Brown is a great main character and is very loveable even though he never catches a break. On two separate occasions, I was stunned and overjoyed in the level of personal integrity that Charlie Brown showed within this movie. The writing and story lines within this movie is top notch and feels identical to the previous TV show specials and comic strip. In fact that is both a negative and positive. I was curious to see how the Peanuts crew would translate to the big screen and its conservative approach is stunning in how strait forward it is and never tries to be 'epic or grand '. The movie feels just like it did in the 1960's, which is fine, but I feel they missed a chance to update these characters for modern times. Outside of the gorgeous visuals why couldn't this movie be made 10, 20 or 30 years ago? The visual designs of the characters have a 3D depth to them that has never been present before, and occasionally they reference previous storylines and the art style of the original comic strip. All the voice actors fit the roles as perfectly as their 1960's counterparts, and the movie has a very nice musical theme. Overall it was a pleasure to watch this Peanut's movie. I wish that some of the story plot points were tightened up and that the Snoopy Red Baron segments were reduced. The film adaptation of the Peanuts comic strip works well. Even if it never strays from the original source material, its well worthy of your time and is a great family movie.

Final Score:

8/10

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