Photo by Blue Sky Studios.
We review the film ‘Epic’
By Eric Wilkins, Staff Writer
2/5
For your average moviegoer, Epic was always going to be a lightning rod for criticism. The name alone practically screams for it.
The script appears to have been cobbled together from as many clichés and tired storylines as possible: a daughter of a divorced marriage (with a recently deceased mother) visits her estranged father (Jason Sudeikis), a dad obsesses over studying something no one else believes in (in this case, tiny people), a pair of minute civilizations are engaged in an eternal struggle of good and evil, there’s a quest to attain an object, and the absolutely exhausted tool of shrinking a main character. Estranged family aside, it’s Alice in Wonderland meets Lord of the Rings… or any other number of fantasy combinations really.
Epic pits leaf-men riding hummingbirds against some sort of miniature goblins on crow backs whom are intent on transforming the film’s forest into a mass of dead and twisted trunks. Our protagonist, M.K. (Amanda Seyfried), of course manages to find herself in the middle of it all through a chance incident. Predictability ensues.
Despite a star-studded cast that includes The Hunger Games’ Josh Hutcherson, Colin Farrell, Christoph Waltz, and even Beyoncé (albeit briefly), their names are wasted on this film. I suppose a silver lining can come from Aziz Ansari (of Parks and Recreation) supplying comedy throughout, but even with that, why would you be watching Epic anyways?
