Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts is my favorite comic strip of all time so naturally, I was a little nervous when Blue Sky Studios announced they would be adapting the strip into a feature film. Though they're not a terrible studio, some of there movies are pretty bad at times. I later rented a copy of "The Peanuts Movie" and thought it was pretty good. It had a pretty good story, it treated it's source material seriously and didn't add modern-day humor like most animated films have now.
So, what's the story? It focuses once again on poor Charlie Brown. He is still being considered the screw ups by most of the kids around the neighborhood (especially Lucy), but then a new neighbor moves into town which turns out to be the Little Red-Haired Girl and Charlie Brown is determined to prove he is not a blockhead like most people think he is with a little help from his friend Linus and his dog Snoopy.
The animation is an interesting attempt at bringing the Peanuts gang to 3D models. While personally, I prefer comic strips characters being animated in 2D, I do like the 3D models of Charlie Brown and his friends. The story is pretty good despite it taking many plot points from previous Peanuts television specials. I particularly like the subplot with Snoopy is writing a story of him trying to save his love interest Fifi from the evil Red Baron despite some scenes of the subplot reminded me a little too much of Pixar's "Up". I don't like however showing what the Little Red Hair Girl looks like, giving her a voice, and later at the end of the movie showing her face as I think it takes the mystery away from the character. The voice actors are all children as no adults are seen or heard (their voice is once again a trombone noise). I do like the actors in their parts (particularly Charlie Brown's actor), however, I find the actress who played Lucy too young (the actor who played Linus, Lucy's younger brother, sounds older than her). One thing I particularly like is that they use recordings of Snoopy's voice from the late Bill Melendez.
So overall, while I find it nowhere near as good as the comic strips or specials and films made by Melendez and crew, I still find "The Peanuts Movie" a funny, cute, and lovable film that is definitely worth checking out.
