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Epic: A Little Adventure
By Sandra Olmsted
At the center of Epic is relationship between Mary Katherine, or “M.K.” (Amanda Seyfried), a teenage daughter who comes to live with her father (Jason Sudeikis) after several years of separation after the parents divorce and her mother’s subsequent death.
Dad’s belief in and obsession with finding little people who live in the forest caused the problems that broke up the family and his marriage, and M.K. doesn’t even pretend to have an open mind until she is magically shrunk to that size by a mother-nature-esque Queen Tara (Beyoncé Knowles). M.K. is immediately drawn into the political intrigues of a power transfer.
As Queen Tara selects a water lily bud to become the next queen, and the evil Mandrake (Christolph Waltz) and his minions plot to prevent the blooming of the bud so that they can spread Rot, a viral, life-sucking, charcoal-like substance killing all the creatures and plants. Before dying, Queen Tara hands M.K. the precious bud carrying the new queen and asks her to deliver it to a save place before the moon is in position to make the bud bloom into a queen.
M.K., despite being at the disadvantage of being new to this world, takes her duty very seriously, and exciting adventures ensue. The down side is the derivativeness of the story, and comparisons to Avatar, The Borrowers, Fern Gully, and the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise are not out of line, but the film is gorgeous, and the 3D well done, so that the audience can share in M.K.’s adventure.
The film will delight children and isn’t torture for adults because Danny Elfman provides the score and the characters are voiced by stars such as Aziz Ansari, Chris O’Dowd, Colin Farrell, and Steven Tyler. Epic, a Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation of a Twentieth Century Fox Animation presentation of a Blue Sky Studios production, runs 102 minutes and is rated PG for mild action, some scary images and brief rude language. Epic is still in some theaters. More of Olmsted’s reviews are available at www.thecinematicskinny.com.
