Films for Thoughts on Thursday: Epic

This is a weekly meme that I am hosting here at Reviews from a Bookworm. All you have to do is share a movie review once a week and link back to here.


This weeks movie review will be for:

The main storyline of Epic revolves around two separate but connected worlds. Mary Katherine, or MK as she likes to be known (don't ask), is moving in with her father, Professor Bomba, after the death of her mother. This will be the first time she has seen him since she was a young girl. Her father has dedicated his life to trying to locate Leafmen, tiny human creatures. He comes across as completely mental but, of course, there are actually Leafmen, they just don't know it yet. And so the story goes back and forth between MK and the Leafmen story. This is where we are introduced to Nod, voiced by Josh Hutcherson, who doesn't want to be a Leafman because, frankly, he doesn't want to have to grow up and have any responsibilities. The two worlds collide when MK is trusted with an important leaf pod by their Queen and told she must transport it safely to Nim Galuu. The Queen uses her magic to shrink MK down to their size and she must work with Nod it get it there without being stopped by the evil Boggan.

Now that all may sound confusing and it is, this movie definitely had A LOT going on. It went back and forth between the two stories for quite a while, and the whole thing was giving me a bit of a headache. There was so much going on that it did get a little hard to keep track of it all.

I went into Epic with ridiculously low expectations, I had seen some less than favourable reviews for it. But I was at my parents house and my dad was decorating so when I saw this was showing on Sky Movies I decided to give it a go. I love a good kids film and hoped this wouldn't be too bad. I don't know if it was my low expectations, or my lack of anything else to do but I actually ended up quite enjoying Epic. It was in no way Epic, but it definitely wasn't a bad movie either. 

It's really important for a characters voice to match their appearance in an animated film, it needs to match up or it's off putting when you're trying to watch. Unfortunately, Beyonce's voice didn't match up well with her characters and neither did Colin Farrell 's, it seemed too obvious that you were hearing their voices and not the character. It just felt like they were talking normally, not trying to become the characters. I can't quite explain it, but it was really off putting as I was trying to watch.

There were a lot of characters to keep track of in this movie. Some I enjoyed, but I didn't really love any of them. I enjoyed some of the jokes, but do feel like they seemed to be trying to hard at times. But I did have quite a lot of times where I did laugh out loud. My favourite characters were probably Mub and Grub, hilarious sidekick characters. They provided me with the most laughs and I really thought they were great characters. I have to admit that the life cycle of the fruit fly scene had me laughing like crazy.

The storyline read like a mix of about twenty different movies I have already seen. It really reminded me a lot of FernGully, with the human being shrunk down to the size of a small creature in the forest. But it had a lot of elements of other movies mixed in as well, so it didn't come across as very original. But, despite all of my issues with the movie, I still really enjoyed it.

The animation was done well, but the real size humans did look a little strange. But all of the action scenes between the Leafmen and Boggan were very well done and looked amazing. This had some great jokes, and some strange ones too. It was a nice way to spend my time  on a Sunday when I had nothing else to do. As far as kid films go, I  personally feel that this was a pretty decent film. I wasn't once bored and I enjoyed the animation, the jokes and the general storyline. I also enjoyed that it didn't have your run-of-the-mill happy ending that you see in most kids films.

3.5/5 Butterflies

It was a pretty decent film as far as kids films go. I wasn't once bored whilst watching it and I enjoyed the animation. Some of the actors voices didn't match up well with their characters, which was a little distracting when you were trying to watch. This had some hit and miss jokes, some seemed strange but others really got me laughing. I enjoyed the fact that it didn't have the run-of-the-mill happy ending that you see in most children's films. It was definitely not on the same awesomeness scale as Disney films likes Frozen, Tangled or any of the classics, but it was enjoyable.

I have been meaning to take part in both of the following memes for a while now, so its nice to finally be able to get to them. I will be taking part in Reading is Fun Again's Thoughtful Thursday and Okay, Let's Read's  Thursday Thoughts, picking between them or doing both topics each week.

Book Covers

What features do you like in a book cover? Do you like plain covers, ones with drawings on or photographs? Do you like movie tie-in covers?

I recently did a Friday Favourites post that showed some of my favourite covers. I like something that really grabs my attention. I don't really like large faces on my covers, where the models face takes up most of it, I think the only one I have ever really loved was Glow and that was because it was so stunning. I am also not a fan of men on the front with their shirts open and their chests showing, that is so overdone and it bugs me. I am also not a huge fan of the kiss or almost kiss on the cover. I don't like them to be too overly romantic. I am more a fan of simple covers. I have actually come to love tie-in covers for books, I recently purchased TFIOS and The Spectacular Now books for the tie-in covers even though I own both already.