epic (3D) (2013, Dir. Chris Wedge, USA) (Cert: U/PG) ***

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson

 MK (Seyfried) moves out to the countryside to live with her father (Jason Sudeikis) when her mother dies. MK’s father has spent years obsessively seeking tiny people he believes lives in the forest at the expense of his marriage and MK is sceptical to say the least. Meanwhile,  deep in the forest, the Leafmen are in desperate trouble when the evil Mandrake (Christoph Waltz) steals an important flower bud in hopes to destroy the forest and when MK gets shrunk to the Leafmen’s size, she helps join them to save the forest.

 

Based on a story by William Joyce (the man whose work was also adapted in 2012 with Legend Of The Guardians), epic is something of a misleading title. Unlike standard epics this lacks the cast of thousands or extensive running time  and is clearly made with a younger audience in mind. Comparisons can be made to Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992) with the various tropes tossed around (tiny forest creatures, a human shrunken into their world, a dark villain bent on habitat destruction) but the idea of it being an all-out copy may be a tad glib. The film actually shows a distinct display in influences from many disparate films as there seem to be nods to the likes of Return Of The Jedi (1983), The Neverending Story (1984), The Lion King (1994), and even Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989) to name a few. This being a Sky Blue Studios film, the backgrounds and scenery set this world apart, even if the character designs aren’t anything special and the film plays too hard to the 3D angle with humming birds flying towards camera at various opportunities. There’s also not very many memorable performances save for Christoph Waltz characteristically hamming it up to the point where his character doesn’t need to spread rot in the forest (for reasons which are never really explained, a big flaw in the plot) instead Waltz could just chew the scenery, but enjoyably so. The real surprising turn comes from Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler (father of actress Liv) who makes a for a charismatic, if often a little unnecessary, supporting role. Despite its somewhat grandiose self-belief, epic isn’t a great fantasy film, but it is at least a good fantasy film with a very strong Danny Elfman score that does lend the film some weight.