It’s been 35 tears since Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang appeared in movie theaters, with 1980’s Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!). It’s not like these kids were absent from the cultural consciousness. Easily one of the most influential and famous comics of all time, and featuring instantly recognizable characters, Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” cast have been everywhere — from the still syndicated strip to the classic TV specials; the insurance ads, the Hallmark shelves, the Broadway stage, and beyond. Despite this, I admit that it’s a little surprising that there hasn’t been a major theatrical Peanuts release in my lifetime until now.
If nothing else, The Peanuts Movie, directed by Steve Martino (Horton Hears a Who!), co-produced by Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters), and released through Blue Sky Studios (responsible for those terrible 3D animated Ice Age movies; in fact, a short starring that stupid squirrel Scrat opens before this movie, and I didn’t think I would dislike a theatrical cartoon more than “Lava” from earlier this year) is a welcome addition to this season’s batch of movies. The Peanuts Movie is charming, cute, and mostly understands what Peanuts is and what it can be.
Keeping in tune with the Peanuts specials and comic strips, The Peanuts Movie has, at best, a nominal plot, though bears a rich story. It casually moves from scene to scene, based around tested-and-true gags and setpieces. Martino, along with screenwriters Craig Schulz (Schulz’s son), Bryan Schulz (Schulz’s grandson), and Cornelius Uliano find plenty of opportunities to dip into the wealth of material Charles Schulz provided. With, like, 50 years worth of work, obviously some stuff only gets referenced — the solemn “Christmas Time is Here,” the Great Pumpkin — while other, more vivid moments get fleshed out — pretty much anything involving Snoopy. The thing is: these stories work perfectly like this, and the more lackadaisical structure with low stakes and familiar situations make the characters all the more relatable and the jokes all the more funny. There isn’t a single emotion or experience Charlie Brown encounters that we haven’t felt before. At one point in the movie, my boyfriend muttered, “I’ve been there, Charlie Brown. I’ve been there.”
The biggest and most off-putting change to the franchise comes in the animation. The Peanuts world has always been flat, simple, quick with round character designs and maybe two planes of existence, not the sort of stuff that lends itself well to 3D animation. I was apprehensive when the producers announced it was going to be a 3D animated movie — regardless of how much Feig promised they wouldn’t be Space Jamming it up — because that clean and polished valley 3D animation exists in doesn’t strike me as “Peanuts” at all. But I guess the state of the industry leans heavily toward this 3D stuff, and having a new Peanuts movie outweighs the format.
The animators, though, challenged themselves to maintain the spirit of the Schulz aesthetic. Similar to how the animators on last year’s Lego Movie used digital bricks to animate the film, the animators on The Peanuts Movie make sure to not let the movie look polished and perfect. Light doesn’t bounce everywhere. The backgrounds aren’t overly rendered. There’s a small degree of volume and mass in this movie, but for the most part, Martino’s crew maintain the wobbly but passionate lines Schulz was famous for. Even the objective camera placement, shifting from left to right, having characters not face each other when they’re having a conversation, match the look Bill Melendez achieved in all those old favorite cartoons. They include Schulz’s lettering all the time and sometimes even break into 2D doodles to deliver the story. The color palette is flat but more expressive and spectacular than probably every other animated movie this year with the exception of Inside Out. Of course, I’m a sucker for the rapidly flashing, seizure inducing stream of colors behind Snoopy whenever he loses his temper.
The film strays away from this style during the imagined sequences as the World War I Fighting Ace takes on the Red Baron. Martino and company channel Star Wars and Howard Hawks movies to bring out this literal dog fight. Though the main narrative of the movie doesn’t have a huge plot, these sequences feature Snoopy (who, by the way, is still voiced by Bill Melendez through archival recordings, because no one else can be Snoopy, okay?) trying to save fellow pilot and love interest, Fifi (voiced, kind of, by Kristen Chenowith [Pushing Daisies]). Although these sequences are lively and more thrilling than the rest of the movie, they don’t stick out, and it’s obvious the whole crew went to great measures to make sure it all still fit the tone and humor of the film. I couldn’t stop laughing when the scene suddenly changed from the World War I Flying Ace zipping around to Snoopy sneaking by a window on a clothes line, Peppermint Patty on the phone going, “Hello Chuck, your crazy dog’s at it again.” It blends together well.
Continued belowThe only part that didn’t come across as authentic to the Schulz style was the ending. For all its charm, bright colors, and cute characters, there was a bleak and morbid streak that ran through the strip and even carried over into the animated specials. Peanuts has always been bittersweet, with hard lessons learned and expectations thwarted that this movie sort of foregoes for something gooeyer and happier. It was sweet, but it did feel off from even the rest of the movie.
Overall, though The Peanuts Movie is a joy: charming, cute, enduring, and heartwarming. Steve Martio, Paul Feig, and the rest of the crew channeled a strong Schulz spirit and managed to capture the soul of the piece, even in a generally soulless format. It’s a bright 90 minutes and makes you want to turn back to the specials or dig out your battered old collections.
