Movie Thoughts: Sing (2016)

• Released: September 11th, 2016
• Directed by: Garth Jennings, Christophe Lourdelet
• Running time: 1h 48min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A group of animals come together for a singing contest, while the host of the contest wants to save his theater.

My Thoughts

I have seen some mixed opinions on this movie, most of them skewing negative. The general consensus I've seen is that this movie is bad and eh, I don't think I agree there.

I wouldn't really call this "great" or even really "good", but I think it's decent enough. Perfectly average and inoffensive. However, I can also see how it being average and bland can be a problem for people. This movie doesn't really feel like it stands out in any way and like it has its own identity. So I can agree there, yes, this movie definitely is pretty cookie-cutter and bland. Also not the most memorable. But I still wouldn't call it bad, because there is some decent stuff here.

For one, I surprisingly liked the characters. Yeah, okay, most of these are pretty simple and all, but I did like a few of them. I liked Rosita, I liked Meena, I liked Ash, I liked Johnny, and even Buster (whom I expected to dislike going in) was pretty decent. But yeah, there also definitely are characters that get on your nerves, such as Gunter, the frogs and the mouse. So nothing amazing or anything, but I did click with some of these characters more than I was anticipating.

Where I did kinda check out, however, was all the endless music and songs in this. I get it, this movie is titled Sing and is about a singing competition. But like, it just feels a bit excessive, like the plot is just coming to a halt sometimes to show off the different performances. And this is also a bit of a personal thing: I am simply usually not very passionate about songs, especially in movies. 

I do like songs fine and I can like musicals if they're done well, but it generally just doesn't really get much emotion out of me or hype me up or fill me with awe or anything. Especially if it's mostly just pretty generic pop music, which isn't my genre at all. And a lot of the songs in this movie are rather modern (well, for like a decade ago) pop-y songs. There are a few exceptions, but generally I think there is just too much of it and the songs in this movie just didn't really get the emotional response out of me the creators were clearly intending it to have.

But the plot was still decent enough, it kept me decently engaged (when it didn't come to a halt to have the animals preform). I wanted these characters (except that damn mouse) to succeed. 

So, okay, not a very good movie, but I do think that most critics I've seen review this movie are a tad too mean towards it. It is definitely generic and forgettable, but I'd say there's still at least a few aspects about them I genuinely liked. I also do get that this movie just isn't really for me, with its heavy focus on musical numbers. I might see the sequel sometime, who knows.