Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie – a movie review by Roz Tarszisz
If you ever read a Peanuts comic strip then you know that it’s a bit like childhood meals. You had to finish the veggies to get dessert. In this animated movie, if Charlie Brown is the veggies, Snoopy is dessert.
It has been many years since I enjoyed following Peanuts so I was excited to be taking a favourite companion, aged 4.75, along to the preview.
I had forgotten that Charlie Brown is an insecure nebbish. Yes, let’s bang on about him being kind and caring but he is still a bit of a wimp. Snoopy on the other hand is f-u-n. Their creator Charles M. Schulz allowed Snoopy to write stories about himself as a dashing airman and it was his antics that made the comic strip – and by –inclusion – Charlie Brown, fun.
Is the back story relevant? Not for today’s young audience who can learn about the gang from scratch. When school holidays stretch out for ever, you could do worse than settle back for this non-violent portrayal of innocence in a world without adults.
When a new redheaded girl arrives in his class at school, Charlie Brown is instantly smitten. Overcome with shyness he is too paralysed and insecure to talk to her and spends the entire movie trying to find ways to impress her without actually making contact.
His dog Snoopy is a typewriter bashing beagle. He writes vivid stories about himself as a World War I flying ace fighting aerial battles against his arch nemesis, the infamous Red Baron. Snoopy falls for FiFi, a cute flying poodle and when she gets shot down and imprisoned by the Red Baron, Snoopy has to rescue her.
There are plenty of interesting characters with their own foibles. There’s Linus with his security blanket, Pigpen, who moves around in a cloud of dust and tough-as-nails Lucy.
The world of Peanuts comes to life with great animation and it’s funny. There are sophisticated concepts to grasp – self-doubt, lack of confidence, being honest and if it’s a tad preachy, the messages are still good ones.
What did my companion think? He liked Snoopy best. Snoopy is cool and even small children appreciate cool.
3/5 2015 Rated G 88mins Released January 1
Starring Noah Schnapp, Bill Melendez, Hadley Belle Miller
Directed by Steve Martino
Written by Bryan Schulz, Craig Schulz, Cornelius Uliano
From Peanuts created by Charles M. Schulz
