For those who love VeggieTales this film will probably not disappoint. It retains all of the charm and humor that fans have come to expect. As a film however, it is lacking. The story of Jonah, as important as it is, does not translate well to the screen because of its broken structure. To accommodate the narrative holes the filmmakers are forced to sandwich the story between opening and closing scenes that have nothing to do with the biblical tale. These added scenes make the tale of Jonah just an extended piece of meta fiction. This makes portions of the film awkward since the focus is splintered. All of that and the script isn’t good. There’s a lack of inspiration in the movie, it comes across as something they had to do more than they wanted to do. It is as if they found themselves stuck with this biblical story and just couldn't figure out which direction to go with it. They made some choices for the sake of making choices and just ran them through to their end. There’s no overarching themes or symbols, no connecting humor, it’s all just episodic and forgettable. This said; kids will like it. It’s colorful and has music and is devoid of anything scary or too adult.


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The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie (2008)
The Incredibles (2004)


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Labels: animated, film, movie review, Veggie Tales