“Sing” is a lot like many of the other movies from Illumination Studios. It’s basically a moving greeting card. It’s cute for a few minutes, and then you’ll eventually find yourself tucking it away and looking for something more stimulating. As per most of the films from Illumination, “Sing” is just a middle of the road film that barely gets by because of the neat animation. “Sing” is cute. And that’s about it. It’s cute. And it packs a humongous soundtrack filled with pop songs both old and new that are meant to basically distract from the fact that it’s a very barebones animated movie with a paper thin narrative, that does little to convey to its audience something more meaningful.
There’s nothing wrong with escapism every now and then, but “Sing” builds this idea that it’s passing over this important message when there’s not a lot to “Sing” beyond animals singing. It sports an array of sub-plots involving various animals, all of whom are experiencing their own woes, and find a way to cope through singing. Koala Buster Moon owns a theater that is about to close down and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep it up and in business. He hopes to bring the theater back to its original glory, as well as convince the former owner to give him the deed, by staging a huge singing competition he hopes will attract a crowd. So basically, he’s Kermit, and we get to meet some CGI muppets. Except, you know, none of these CGI creations have much personality of individuality.
They’re also shockingly safe, despite being modeled after animals like porcupines and elephants. The only character who is given room to have fun with their model is Mike the Mouse, a miniature crooner who is in big trouble with the mafia. Beyond that, “Sing” just goes along with a rote, and mediocre musical that’s slim on laughs but has a great time exercising the rights to the songs its acquired. “Sing” lacks a real protagonist, as well as an antagonist, thus is just chugs along taking us through the motions until we find someone we want to root for. For all intents and purposes, the music is fine, but it doesn’t do much except to remind us of the limited scope that the movie lives on. The music isn’t so much a character like other musicals, it’s just there as an aside.
It doesn’t compliment the narrative and characters, so much as act as a way of reminding us that these songs were performed by better artists at one time. Never in my life did I ever guess we’d hear “I Like Big Butts” in a kids film. I assume there will be two more sequels for “Sing” somewhere down the road, I’m just baffled as to how they’ll approach it. No characters stand out as unique or original, the narrative is humdrum, and there really isn’t much of a message to take away from it all. It’s just going through the motions just to make you laugh at a pig in a sequin jump suit. I’m going to go watch “Kubo” again.