So... I recently watched an animated kids film called "Ozi: Voice of the Jungle", which is a animated film co-produced from United Kingdom, France, United States & India with an all star cast and written by the creator of "Paw Patrol" and "Bob the Builder" Keith Chapman of all people, strange..., now I didn't have much interest in it since it looked like a generic kids film and the trailer didn't help much with that, but... when i did more search into what this film is and who it was made by, i was far more curious than ya think, it's from the same animation team "Mikros Animation" that did some work on many Netflix animated films like "Orion and the Dark" and a few from Nickelodeon as well like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem", that and Leonardo DiCaprio produced it (Yes..., THAT Leonardo DiCaprio, crazy huh?) and i believe the film has teamed up with some environmentally friendly company to save forests or something i think?...., not sure but yeah, so with all this talent behind it and what it's trying to say, surely there has to be something of value in it to worth it for kids and families.. right?, well anyways the reason i watched outside of my slight interest in it was i wasn't having a great week to start off with and i wanted to go to Cineworld for a change to watch something that'll lift my spirits and make me less moody and forget my life problems (I know this is a weird choice compared to everything else playing but there was nothing else that took my interest), so i saw this on today and after watching it what did i think???.... it was a'ight, yeah pretty inoffensive and by the numbers but it has enough to keep families especially kids glued in to the screen with enough going on and i milady had a decent time with it, it's a cute little film but not without flaws!... so let's talk about it!
Good things first off is the animation, i get it if people are turned off by it's generic basic style but for a animation company that only does digital effects and never done fully animated work (to my knowledge) this is pretty good animation, obviously it's not the best but it looks nice overall, the colours, the textures, the execution and style overall looks good, the characters are nicely designed, the lighting and vibrant colours are dazzling with nice scenery and beautiful backgrounds, so i can say the film the 75/80% looks pleasant and the team did a good job and i was pretty impressed with what they can do, but what i was more impressed with was animating sign language which i can imagine is not a easy task to do but they pulled it off well and i applaud them for including it as a language barrier for Ozi to interact with humans, it's a clever idea and i liked what they did, the voice acting is stellar with Amandla Stenberg doing a solid job voicing the titular character, Dean-Charles Chapman is surprisingly good at voice acting and has some good lines in this as Chance, Donald Sutherland is menacing as Smiley which is also sad as this was his final role before he sadly passed away, Laura Dern, Djimon Hounsou are good as Ozi's parents along with RuPaul as Gurd who didn't get on my nervous and delivered a good performance, the humour did get a few tittles of laughter and one or two laugh out loud moments, but most of it is cutesy and slapstick based so that's good, the heart of the movie is quite sweet and i did find myself smiling at a few moments in a cutesy sort of way, the message of the film is still unfortunately relevant and many films have done it before but this film at least acknowledges it and does more than "Ooooo it's bad, STOP IT", it actually advertises different companies in the credits to contact to try and save forest which is important i think, so i like what it has going for the theme and message, i'm glad we don't focus too much on the whole "Ozi being a social media influencer" which would of ruined the tone and pacing of the film very quickly and got too modern but it is used sparingly and to good use in the film, the characters are likeable enough with the titular character and Chance being the strongest characters in the film as i did enjoy their back and fourth banter and friendship i did like Ozi's parents too, it's directed well and has a few nice moments to calm the pacing down a bit, at least it does try to be more than a standard animated film so.. i'll give it that.
But.. there's quite a bit of flaws that hold it back from being a legit good film, one is... the other supporting characters are not really need like okay the human nurse for Ozi is fine but the Rhino comic relief is very annoying, like a New Zealand version of Mater, the villain Smiley comes in the film like in pretty much in the third act and isn't menacing enough since he's not in it for very long despite Sutherland's good voice work, every other character just do random slapstick to keep the kids away and are not effective, the message is good but it is soooo overly repeated that it hammers it on your head, i think i'd make more sense if there was no talking in the film and the sign language took over, that would be more powerful and feel more effective, heck maybe make it a short film or advert than it'll be more powerful, maybe if the animation was more stylised or more unique-er without disrespecting the animators who clearly worked hard on the film but it is rather just a generic look but even so it looks good, the film does feel rushed and wonky with it's writing and derivative story that it's easy to guess where it's going, the humour is fine but most of it is kiddie based so i wasn't laughing but to be fair the film isn't made for me so... can't be mad it didn't make me laugh more, but it's exactly what you think it is, the script is by the numbers bland exposition with not much unique lines or anything to remember, it really comes and goes and felt rushed a little, if it was maybe like 20 minutes longer maybe it would of been able explore more themes and characters too, but for what it is, it's honestly serviceable for what it does.
And that's the best way to describe "Ozi: Voice of the Forest", it's serviceable at best, it's pointless to be angry at a kids film that legit tries and has some good stuff that makes it very watchable, cute and nice to look at, but... can't say it's legit good either, the animation is legit good and i can see the effort that went into it, i like it's slightly different approach with sign language, the characters are likeable with strong acting and hell even the end credits song "One Heart" is a nice catchy beautiful song, the message is here and does try to be a bit different, but with all the amount of dedication and effort, it's still a basic, formulaic and predicable movie that feels rushed and not much of substance is added to it other than what we got, so... it's tricky, i do think it's a decent kids film that parents can take their young ones to see if they got nothing better to do or if they seen everything else, it'll probably get them talking into saving the forest and hopefully they'll learn something from it, but.. there's better things out there like "Inside Out 2" and "Kensuke's Kingdom", but it's better than "The Garfield Movie" & "Despicable Me 4" that's for sure but... it's just a kids film that does the job fine, i'll probably come back to it at some point to see if my views on it have changed but for now, i am kind of glad i saw, it did lift my spirits a little and nice to see a smaller budget animated film that did try and i applaud the team and animators for that and actually giving a damn about the forest and encouraging people to try and help save it, i'm curious if they'll make another full animated film in the future, that'll be interesting.... maybe more interesting than this?, well who knows?
I'm going to give "Ozi: Voice of the Jungle" a 6.5/10.
