Movie Thoughts: Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia (2022)

• Released: November 12th, 2022
• Directed by: Julien Chheng, Jean-Christophe Roger
• Running time: 1h 20min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

Ernest and Celestine travel to Ernest's home country of Gibberitia, where music is outlawed and every child has to become the profession of their father once they grow up. Ernest and Celestine must work together to bring back music to Gibberitia and free the country from its stiffness and strict rules.

My Thoughts

A fine movie, but I didn't connect with it as much as with the first. It's still pretty dang good, don't get me wrong, but this one bored me a bit more than the first. I think that one of the reasons is that I'm simply not very passionate about music at all, so the whole plot thread of "bringing back music" didn't click much with me personally.

That said, I do like the characters. Ernest and Celestine are still great and I also liked meeting Ernest's family here. Even his father (initially an antagonist) isn't all that bad when push comes to shove. 

However, it did annoy me that early in the film Celestine constantly ignores Ernest's wishes and even gets two of his most prized possessions (his violin and his van) broken and she doesn't really get any comeuppance for doing this. 

The animation is still beautiful, though, and I do recommend this movie for the visuals and characters alone.