And while it’s unclear how he might be able to help Elmer, there’s no mystery as to how Elmer might be able to help him in return: Boris has been tied up and forced into service by Saiwa the gorilla (Ian McShane), who runs Wild Island and will do anything to keep the animals who live there from sinking into the sea. That feeling only intensifies once Elmer reaches Wild Island and befriends the adorable young dragon keeping it afloat as part of some dragon rite of passage.Ī puppy-like beast voiced by a playful Gaten Matarazzo, Boris is about as horrifying as a hand puppet and wears the red horn atop his head like a party hat he can never take off. If the movie’s storybook visual style instantly reveals Cartoon Saloon’s signature - the digital watercolor of the studio’s two-and-a-half-D animation now iconic in its own right, even as Twomey uses it to honor the novel’s original illustrations - its “once upon a time” milieu and broad strokes plotting seem counter to everything that made “Wolfwalkers” special. If an excitable talking whale shaped like a bath toy and voiced by Judy Greer ever offered you a ride across the sea, you probably wouldn’t haggle over the details either. Starting over scares Dela more than a parent ever wants their children to understand, and her burden of fear soon boils over into a fight that sends Elmer fleeing into the streets… where a talking cat (Whoopi Goldberg) points him towards Wild Island with promises of meeting a dragon who might solve all his problems. When a recession forces Dela (Goldshifteh Farahani) to close up shop, she and Elmer decamp to a dour metropolis called Nevergreen City, the kind of blue and rainy place where Fritz Lang might have set his bedtime stories. Instead of being set in a particular time and place, the action begins in a vague, mid-century sketch of the American Midwest, where its upbeat and resourceful young hero works the register at his single mother’s grocery store. And while there’s an enduring timelessness to many of these Gannett-inspired tropes, it’s hard not to miss the cultural specificity that’s been so inextricable from Cartoon Saloon’s previous work, mostly through the mystical Irishness of Tomm Moore’s folklore trilogy but also in the political history that backgrounded Twomey’s adaptation of “The Breadwinner,” about an 11-year-old girl in Taliban-controlled Kabul.īy contrast, “My Father’s Dragon” is a broader tale aimed at a younger audience. This winsome riff on a kids’ lit classic is the most generic movie that Cartoon Saloon has made so far, from its standard-issue story about a boy (voiced by Jacob Tremblay, natch) who runs away from home, to its hyper-cute ensemble of talking animals, and even to the cheesy song that plays over the end credits. Nightmare Film Shoots: The Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'Mad Max' to 'Avatar 2'Ģ023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series 'One True Loves' Review: Simu Liu's Charm Cannot Save This Hallmark-Adjacent Slog 'Paint' Review: Owen Wilson Is a Womanizing Wannabe Bob Ross in This Bizarre Comedy That isn’t because Nora Twomey’s lush - if extremely loose -adaptation of Ruth Stiles Gannett’s 1948 novel represents another creative step forward for Ireland’s finest animation studio, but rather because it doesn’t. That much was already made evident by 2020’s astonishing “Wolfwalkers” (my review of which, I was amused to discover, begins with virtually the same first paragraphs as this one), but “My Father’s Dragon” might do even more to cement Cartoon Saloon’s role as a necessary counterbalance to the rest of your children’s movie diet. Its evocatively rendered 2D films drawing on ancient Celtic imagery - and the traditional storytelling charm that comes with it - sets its work apart from so much of the craven slop that passes for family entertainment in the age of “Lightyear” and “The League of Super-Pets.” If cinema is a crumbling church, the films of Cartoon Saloon are its lovingly crafted stained glass windows. The Kilkenny-based studio behind “The Secret of Kells” and “Song of the Sea” has emerged as a powerhouse in recent years.
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