Two lands, one with fairies and light and the other with bog creatures and darkness, divide a fantastical realm. In the former, fairy Marianne (voiced by Evan Rachel Wood) is heir to the Fairy Kingdom and engaged to dashing warrior Roland (Sam Palladio), until she sees him kissing another fairy on their wedding day. Marianne then vows never to fall in love again. Meanwhile in the dark forest, the Bog King (Alan Cumming) makes the same vow, against his doting mother Griselda's (Maya Rudolph) protests. Shortly later, Marianne's sister Dawn (Meredith Anne Bull) is in a panic about who Marianne will be attending the Spring Ball with and who she herself might meet there. Dawn and her elf best friend Sunny (Elijah Kelley), who has the hots for Dawn, then have a very close shave with a giant lizard from which Marianne saves them, and then at the Ball Roland tricks Marianne into returning to the dark forest where she now meets the Sugar Plum Fairy (Kristen Chenoweth), whose trick of her own is to arrange a fateful meeting between Marianne and the Bog King. All of this, by the way, is told as a jukebox musical.
This first non-Star Wars animated feature from Lucasfilm, with seven-time Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom making his directorial debut, is underrated. It's currently at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes but while it's far from perfect, I certainly don't think it warrants that low a rating. George Lucas developed the story for Strange Magic, with inspiration from A Midsummer Night's Dream, to make a more feminine family movie for his three daughters and while some of the dialogue (David Berenbaum, Irene Mecchi and Rydstrom wrote the final screenplay, for the record) is dreadfully bland and Rydstrom's directorial inexperience shows at times, I nonetheless thought this had a genuine charmand self-awareness to it throughout. The animation, which is of course the intended focal point, is utterly ravishing both in design and detail, and some (albeit not all) of the jokes amused me. The soundtrack is also entertaining, with selections as diverse as the Doors' People Are Strange to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. The vocal cast were all wisely chosen and give engaging, enthusiastic performances also. Strange Magic is no Epic, and it mightn't even be FernGully (I don't know; I haven't seen that since I was a child), but I think you should still ignore the critical drubbing it received. 7/10.
This first non-Star Wars animated feature from Lucasfilm, with seven-time Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom making his directorial debut, is underrated. It's currently at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes but while it's far from perfect, I certainly don't think it warrants that low a rating. George Lucas developed the story for Strange Magic, with inspiration from A Midsummer Night's Dream, to make a more feminine family movie for his three daughters and while some of the dialogue (David Berenbaum, Irene Mecchi and Rydstrom wrote the final screenplay, for the record) is dreadfully bland and Rydstrom's directorial inexperience shows at times, I nonetheless thought this had a genuine charmand self-awareness to it throughout. The animation, which is of course the intended focal point, is utterly ravishing both in design and detail, and some (albeit not all) of the jokes amused me. The soundtrack is also entertaining, with selections as diverse as the Doors' People Are Strange to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. The vocal cast were all wisely chosen and give engaging, enthusiastic performances also. Strange Magic is no Epic, and it mightn't even be FernGully (I don't know; I haven't seen that since I was a child), but I think you should still ignore the critical drubbing it received. 7/10.
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