Powerful

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

When it comes to imaginative and creative worlds, I feel that William Joyce is one of those artists that knows how to do it right. His drawings that have appeared in magazines like The New Yorker and even his own children's books have always fascinated me. He is also known for giving one of the earliest films from Blue Sky Studios, "Robots" it's very impressive visual look. Now almost eight years after that film, he reunites with the studio and director Chris Wedge to give us the studio's creation, "Epic". A film that really delivered on it's animation and parts of it's story though some of it's characters could have been a little bit better. Want to know what exactly I like? I'll give you a brief summary.A teenager named M.K. (Amanda Seyfried) has moved into the isolated house of her father (Jason Sudeikis), a very eccentric scientist who is trying to prove that tiny humanlike creatures known as Leafmen exist. M.K. is pretty doubtful of this, but gets a little more proof than needed when she's accidentally shrunken down by the Leafmen's dying queen and put in charge of a pod, which would later select the next heir to the thrown. Needing to get the pod to safety and get back to her normal size, she and a warrior named Ronin (Colin Farrell), a rookie name Nod (Josh Hutcherson), and a snail and slug named Mug and Grub (Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd respectively) take a journey to save the forrest from the evil leader of the Boggans named Mandrake (Christoph Waltz) who is planning to destroy the heir to avenge the murder of his son.I'll just get out of the way what I loved about this movie the most. It's the animation which is the best I have ever seen Blue Sky do at this point. It's top notch work. Everything looked so beautifully detailed and pretty realistic and it amazes me how much effort was put into the film. It's what I want to see in a grand adventure like this. Speaking of adventure, the story is pretty fascinating as well. I loved seeing how the Leafmen lived and the technology they used and I also thought the scale of the movie was pretty grand as well. There was a peril to it and I felt invested in seeing the pod being safely delivered, but it also kind of makes me wish that we had seen more kingdoms and more of the tiny technology used. As for the characters, I think they're pretty good as well. I really enjoyed the cockiness of Nod's character and the chemistry that he has with Ronin and was really surprised by how much I like the supporting characters. I really thought that characters like Mug and Grub and M.K.'s father would really annoy me, but they surprisingly didn't. I loved their funny personalities and and how quirky and strange they were. As for the villain, he's also pretty good. The thing I like most with him is the motivation he has to do what he's doing, which in this case his avenge his son's death which we actually do see on screen. Another thing that the film did well with the characters was the casting of some who played them. Farrell as the skilled warrior, Hutcherson as the rookie, Seyfried as the audience character, Waltz as the villain. The main characters are perfectly casted. Some of the supporting characters were not though, which gets me to the problems I had with the film. While I thought the main characters and some of the supporting characters voices blended perfectly with the character, others like Beyoncé's and Pitbull's stood out like a sore thumb. Their voices were so recognizable that every time I heard them talk, I didn't hear the characters they were playing, I kept hearing Beyoncé and Pitbull. Another thing that I didn't like of the movie was the title. Why was the film called "Epic"? I mean, it's a pretty grand story and very exciting but I wouldn't call it epic. My only guess to why this is was that Fox saw how much money Disney was pulling in when they renamed movies like "Rapunzel" to "Tangled" and "The Bear and the Bow" to "Brave". If that was the case, it was a pretty stupid choice. However, my biggest problem of the movie though was the character of M.K. Not because she was annoying or unlikeable, but in all honesty, I think she's pretty bland and forgettable. Nothing really stood out about her and I felt that she could have been taken out of the story and not a lot would change. She could have been a lot better than she was in the final product.Though in all honesty, I really think that "Epic" is a pretty impressive movie. I found the story captivating, it's animation breathtaking and most of its character pretty likable. It's one of the better Blue Sky movies we've gotten which further demonstrates that I think they might be better at making original content than sequels. If they do announce a sequel to this film though, I definitely will want to see it.

Whenever I saw this movie was on TV, I would just keep scrolling until one day I decided to DVR and watch it with my toddler. I actually really enjoyed it. Sure, there were some cheesy parts, but there was no over-hyped romance either. The story concluded with an older daughter reuniting and connecting with her dad - which is a great lesson for kids. The animation is not "wow" level like Tangled or Moana. The voice actors did a great job, and again, the story itself is really good.

Amanda Seyfried did a really good job with voicing M.K in this movie. I don't know how many times I have watched this film, to be honest while I'm writing this I'm watching it on TV.From the part with the Queen opening the pink flowers so the purple flower to grow to the scene where the the flower girl who later becomes queen mother says to her it doesn't work that way cause her daughter was saying how she wanted to be queen. Then the Queen chooses the pod and says this is the one. And the scene where MK is looking for her dog and sees the Queen go down and goes closer to her and the Queen gives her the pod and the she shrinks down to their size and than the Queen DIES right in front of her and then Ronin comes grabs the Queen in her arms and she then become leaves and her remains go into the wind and Ronin then tried to take the pod away from MK and MK pushes him away and pod like hangs onto her. Okay I won't stop if I continue, overall the film was AWESOME

I thought this had the best animation rendering I have seen and I have seen them all. There were great camera shots, coloring, lighting, and illustrations. I was in awe. The story was wonderful as well with a lot of action, interesting creatures and alive plants in this unique world. I liked the main characters as well. I would have liked more character development on the young male but in animation, there usually isn't that much character arc and the conflicts are not like regular films. I was shocked this didn't get nominated for the Oscars because I thought it would win. This was a lot better than many of the ones that were nominated. People should enjoy the ride to this fantastical world.