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THE MAGICIAN'S ELEPHANT
Director: Wendy Rogers Cast: The voices of Noah Jupe, Mandy Patinkin, Brian Tyree Henry, Aasif Mandvi, Natasia Demetriou, Benedict Wong, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Dawn French, Pixie Davies, Sian Clifford, Miranda Richardson MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:39 Release Date: 3/10/23 (limited); 3/17/23 (Netflix) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 16, 2023 The animation of The Magician's Elephant is a bit underwhelming, and the story feels like a short one stretched just a bit too thin. There are moments and stretches in the directorial debut of Wendy Rogers, though, in which neither of those things matters. At those times, this movie displays a surprising and considerable amount of heart. It's not quite enough to carry the whole of this material, adapted by screenwriter Martin Hynes from Kate DiCamillo's children's novel. That quality does make one a bit more forgiving of the movie's obvious shortcomings, though. We enter a town that was once filled with magic, until a foreign war broke the population's spirits and made them stop believing in such fanciful things. Years later, war orphan Peter (voice of Noah Jupe) is being raised to become a soldier by a retired military officer (voiced by Mandy Patinkin) in said town. One day, the boy visits a fortune teller (voiced by Natasia Demetriou), who informs him that his presumed-dead younger sister is still alive. Peter can find her, if he "follows the elephant." A traveling magician (voiced by Benedict Wong) accidentally conjures an elephant during a catastrophic stage performance that evening, and when he hears that news, Peter makes it his mission to free the elephant from its current captivity. The main plot has the King (voice of Aasif Mandvi) offering Peter the chance to win the elephant, if he accomplishes three "impossible" tasks. The boy receives some help and advice from a helpful captain (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) of the palace guard and assorted strangers-who-might-not-be-strangers. Some of these characters, such as the captain and the retired officer and a nun (voiced by Dawn French) who's tending to another orphan, possess an air of melancholy and reserved optimism that makes the back story of this tale far more intriguing and affecting than what's happening in the current moment (The vocal cast is eclectic, obviously, but quite good at adding a tenor of depth to these characters). A lot of that amounts to repetitious exposition, action sequences (a chase involving an imposing guard and a scene in which Peter tries to fly) that are hindered by the somewhat-jittery animation, and a relationship between boy and beast that feels like an afterthought against the story's other concerns. Some of the humor feels forced, especially compared to the somber air that hangs, like the literal clouds of hopelessness in the town (They look like copy-and-pasted spheres, which should give one an idea of the lower quality/budget of the production), over the proceedings. That dichotomy within the story never quite gels. The Magician's Elephant does give us some emotional core to appreciate. It also helps to guide this material, which is, regardless, a bit too busy, underdeveloped, and tonally uncertain to make the kind of whole impact its best individual moments do. Copyright © 2023 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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