The
Nut Job
(2014/Universal Blu-ray w/DVD + Digital Copy)
Picture:
B/B- Sound: A-/B+ Extras: C Film: C
The
Nut Job is
a tale about squirrels pulling off a heist like that of say Ocean's
Eleven.
Unlike comparable heist films, however, this CGI animated venture is
weak and unthrilling. The weak premise coupled with weak characters
made this nutty tale barely tolerable.
The
story takes place in a downtown park where a squirrel named Surly
(voiced by Will Arnett) is unhappy with the day to day activities,
mostly controlled by a stern raccoon named Raccoon (voiced by Liam
Neeson). Surly would like to find his own path in life, but the
commune-like activities of the Park (again ruled by Raccoon) have the
park's creatures gathering and storing food for the impending winter
I a large tree. Having different and bigger dreams Surly sets out to
conduct the biggest heist the park has ever seen; setting his sights
on a roasted nut cart on the outskirts of the park. The biggest
heist ever seen? How many heists are these super squirrels pulling
off?!?
Anyhow,
the plot plays out with some predictable turmoil and strife for Surly
as he is banned from the park and finds love
in the female squirrel Andi (voiced by Katherine Heigl). The mundane
foundation of the film as well as the less than stellar animation
(which appears annoyingly outdated) stylings makes the film a tough
sell. There are no deeper life lessons or even that nice blend of
childish/covert adult humor for children of all ages to enjoy; in
fact I would find it hard for most to enjoy.
With
a host of animated features on both the big screen and TV I would say
the Nut
Job is
not/was not a worthwhile venture. There are funny parts here and
there but overall the execution was poor.
The
technical features as somewhat mentioned before are not very good by
2014 standards. The image is a 1.85 X 1, 1080p/AVC encoded MPEG-4
that lacks the depth, texture, and detail of recent Dreamworks,
Disney and other straight to Blu-ray ventures. The colors are
bright, the image is clear and smooth but overall it is a hastily put
together CGI film with (by again today's standards) weak animation.
The sound is better than the image quality as the 5.1 DTS-HD Master
Audio lossless track projects clean and clear; utilizing the
surrounds for action sequences. The voice acting comes through
nicely without distortion; while the musical scores also engulf the
viewer as all speakers are used.
The
DVD and Digital Copies are merely a downgrade of the Blu-ray feature.
The
extras are blah
only offering less than 15 minutes of content:
Deleted
Scenes (more so extended scenes)
Storyboards
The
Great Nut Heist (Promo piece)
(Isolated)
End Credit Sequence with (Gangnam
Style
with Psy)
The
creators of the film seemed bored themselves with this lackluster
venture into animation, so expecting a good response from viewers was
equally unlikely.
-
Michael P. Dougherty II
