The Peanuts Movie is very loosely structured around Charlie Brown (Noah Schnapp) and his attempts to become worthy of the notice of the new kid in class, the little red headed girl. The movie glides through the school year, documenting the various events that give Charlie Brown a chance to stand out: a standardized test, a talent show, a school dance and a book report. Through all this, he gets the help of his faithful canine companion Snoopy (given voice through the archival recordings of the late Bill Melendez), who in his off time is imagining himself as the hero of a romantic novel set in World War I.
The movie seems very mindful of preserving the tone of the source material. It doesn't stray very far from the elements that made the strip so beloved, though it does seem a lot less melancholy than the comic and the derivative works often got. There is a sense that the movie is simply playing it safe, limited by both the demands of faithfulness and mass market acceptance. And this makes the film less interesting than it could have been. But even them, the charms of the strip make their way through, and it is still something worth seeing for both adult fans of the comic, and kids who have never been exposed to the magic that is Peanuts.
The biggest leap this film makes is in the animation. The jump to 3D could have jarring, but even here the production is very careful to stay true to the strip. The art style hasn't changed at all, the new dimensions just adding a shade of depth of Schulz's designs. It looks lovely, the film looking a lot warmer than most animated features. There is an inviting sketchiness to the whole thing, a handdrawn quality that belies the digital source of the animation. And in the Red Baron sequences, the movie is able to deliver a sense of scale as well. The flying sequence are really well put together, and are about as thrilling as anything the bigger adventure movies have given us.
Compared to other adaptations of the comic strip, this movie's story is actually pretty cohesive. The movie manages to string together many of the most beloved elements of the property while still keeping to one solid narrative. And the tone is mostly faithful. While there are glimpses of the strip's more melancholy, philosophical side, the film mostly keeps to easier comedic material. The film strays the furthest from the tone of the strip in its resolution, the story foregoing the bittersweet as it displays a more mainstream sensibility. This is understandable, certainly, and not a big thing in the long run. But it might rub some people the wrong way.
But none of this negates just how charming this movie is. And even with the melancholy toned down, this is still a much more thoughtful and even keeled movie than one tends to get nowadays. A lot of films aimed at children tend to get frantic, building elaborate quests filled with attention grabbing action. This movie largely stays grounded in the emotions of its main character, and that's admirable in itself. Helping things along is the voice work. It shouldn't be remarkable that this film actually looked for children to voice its characters. But we live in a world where a yearning for a recognizable name trumps common sense. The film benefits greatly from its young voice cast, the characters sounding exactly like they ought to sound.
The word that best describes The Peanuts Movie is "lovely." There was probably room here for more experimentation, or perhaps a touch more of the salt that made the sweetness of the original strip so distinct. But overall, this is a film that captures much of what made the source material so beloved. And in doing that, it emerges as something pretty special in the vast landscape of animated features for children. It resists the temptation to go big, to create something loud and frantic. The story stays with this one little boy trying his best to be good, even when the world seems to have it out for him. In a world of endless bombast, this is something to be cherished.
My Rating:
