Sing (2016) Movie Review

Hello and welcome to Dallin: Film Fanatic today. Thanks for visiting on this fine day to read my review for Illumination's newest film, Sing. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, and more. The film is about a struggling, but optimistic, koala bear named Buster Moon (McConaughey), who attempts to save his theater by hosting a singing competition. To entice more attendance, Buster makes flyers promising a prize money of 1,000 dollars, but due to a "small mixup," it changes to 100,000 dollars. A ton of animals show up and the final contestants include a mouse (MacFarlane), a shy elephant (Tori Kelly), two pigs (Witherspoon) and (Nick Kroll), a mountain gorilla (Egerton), and a moody porcupine (Johansson). To those who've read my previous reviews, you'll notice a lot of changes have been made to my reviews. In short, there will no longer be spoiler portions which is a good thing because there's nothing to spoil with this film. Everything you've seen in the marketing campaign is what you get. Anyway, changes have been made and I'm curious to hear your reaction to them. One thing that hasn't changed is that I still have a trailer below before my review starts.



Low Expectations

Truth be told, I was not really jazzed about seeing Sing. I thought Illumination was advertising it too much. Not only that, but they showed the same jokes and same scenes that didn't give me any burning desire to see it. Another reason is that I didn't like Illumination's earlier film, The Secret Life of Pets. It, quite honestly, is the worst film I saw in 2016. So with all that in mind, I didn't expect Sing to be a good movie.

Unexpected Surprise and Favorite Characters

But imagine the level of surprise I felt, when I found out that Sing is a really great movie. There's a line that Buster Moon has in the film, which is "Once you hit rock bottom, there's nowhere else to go but up." The way I interpreted that line is that Illumination hit rock bottom with The Secret Life of Pets and bounced right back up with Sing. That doesn't mean they went back all the way to the top which I'll talk about in the next paragraph, but it was an improvement over their earlier film. I loved the music that were used and I thought the voices were done well. The MVS's (Most Valued Singers) are Taron Egerton, Reese Witherspoon, and Scarlett Johansson. I was really impressed with their singing voices. I'd also like to give a shoutout to Seth MacFarlane as the mouse, Mike who sounds a lot like Frank Sinatra when he sings. He may be a scoundrel, but he had one heck of a set of pipes. My favorite character of the film is Garth Jennings as Karen Crawly who is the elderly green iguana and is Buster's clumsy, but hilarious, assistant. Fun fact, Garth Jennings is actually the director of the film. I did not know that until I looked at the cast list.

Too Long and Cliched


Even though a majority of the film is good, there are two main flaws that lessen my enjoyment of the film a tad bit. The first problem is that this film has a really long runtime. This film is an hour and fifty minutes long. I didn't think the film should've been that long. I think that the people working on this film could've cut twenty, maybe thirty, minutes from this and I think it would've been a tad more enjoyable. I felt that during the middle of it, the film was dragging on and that could've been cut in order to make the film better with its pacing. Which leads me to my second complaint and that the film is so by the book with its premise. We've seen this kind of story before. We've seen characters that are striving to be more than what their original purpose is for. In some ways, the movie does a few new things with that premise, but when it didn't do anything new, the film was boring at points which connects this problem to the former one about the film being too long.

Should You See It?/2D or 3D

Yes, I think you should see Sing. It's a good film that'll entertain the kids and the adults will get a lot of laughs at the funny jokes. Should you see it in the theater? No. But that decision is up to you. I think that while it's a great film, you could probably wait till the film is available to buy or rent. But if you really want to see this film in the theater, see it as a matinee. Now if you see the film in the theater, should you see it in 2D or 3D? I didn't see it in 3D and I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything 3D-ish about the film. I don't think the extra bucks to see it in 3D is necessary. I'm also going to give the films a grade from now on. It'll be on a A-D scale. I give Sing a D+. It's an entertaining film that'll likely give you a laugh or two, but the pacing is sluggish at points and the film is often by the numbers. That's how I sum up Sing.

Conclusion.

So that's my review of Sing. What did you think of the film? Do you concur with my opinions or is your view of the movie different from mine?  I'd also be curious to see what you think of the changes I have made to my reviews. Write those thoughts down in the comments section below. Thanks for reading, I'm the film fanatic, bye-bye.