Sing (No, Please, Don’t)

Now that I have a kid who’s old enough to take to the movies, you can expect to see more children’s film reviews. So, yeah, enjoy these, everyone.

Sing is the latest in a long line of non-Disney animated films that tries hard but misses the point entirely. You see, most non-Disney animated movies think that all they need to be good is a bunch of brightly colored animals cavorting around on-screen. Kids aren’t that stupid. Movies don’t have to pander to them.

Sing is about a koala who owns a failing theater. As a last-ditch effort to save the theater (save the rec center, amirite?), he hosts a singing competition a la American Idol. What follows is a parade of animals singing popular songs. The songs are strung together at regularly intervals to hold together the paper-thin plot.

I suppose it’s too much to ask for the songs to be original. The Disney songs are always original. But in Sing, they’re the same shitty pop songs you hear every day on the radio. Seriously, did we need to hear a cover of Call Me Maybe sung by a hedgehog? Even the one original song in the film was so bland, I already don’t remember it.

The movie is stuffed with one-dimensional characters. There is the mouse who is conceited. There is the pig who hates being a housewife. There is the gorilla who wants to step out of his father’s shadow, etc. Nobody really learns or grows at all in this godawful piece of shit. And since we don’t get to know any of them, it’s impossible to give two shits about the characters.

The cast is good, I’ll give them that. Matthew McConaughey is unrecognizable as the main character. But he delivers a good, non-singing performance. The other actors are equally unrecognizable (sans Seth McFarlane as the mouse), and, after looking at the cast list and knowing I’ve never heard any of them sing before, I can’t help but wonder if they actually sang their songs. I’d be surprised if they did.

Probably the worst part is that the movie isn’t funny in the slightest. It flails for jokes, but rarely lands them. The only part I actually remember laughing at was when the koala uses himself as a sponge at the car wash. Otherwise, there is a dearth of laughs to be had here.

The movie drags on interminable for two hours. And when the movie is as brain dead as this one, that’s a long fucking time.

I’ve seen a lot of children’s movies in the last three years, and Sing is not worth the time. The Disney films try to tell a good story, and don’t have to dumb themselves down to be entertaining. Sing, and other films of its ilk, thinks children are idiots, and serve up bland, sloppy storytelling masked in fancy visuals.

Usually, once we finished one of these movies, I ask my daughter if she liked it. She shouted, “Yeah!” after Frozen and Moana. After Sing, she barely mustered a response. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Verdict: Bad

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