"The Nut Job" is about a Squirrel named Surly, who is interested in finding food for himself. He is considered an outcast from the other animals in the park. One day after being banished and sent to live in the city, Surly finds a Nut store and plans a heist to take all the food. He is followed by Buddy, his only friend and a rat of few words, who decides to help him with the heist. Eventually, one squirrel from the park named Andie, finds out about Surly, and forces him to make a deal about sharing the nuts and help feed the rest of the woodland animals.
The rest of the movie shows the animals trying to steal the nuts, and humor consisting of nut innuendos, and fart jokes. You know, the kind of humor children love, right? Oh, and there is also a sub-plot that involves a bunch of robbers posing as owners of the Nut store, but are actually going to rob a back next door to it... Yeah...
What I just wrote is a basic synopsis of a surprisingly complicated kids movie. I tired to make as mush sense of it as possible, but I will explain a little more as we venture on. For those of you who do not know, this movie is actually based on a 2005 computer animated short by Peter Lepeniotis. It's a ten minuted short that follows a squirrel (also named Surly) who is try to steal a slice of pizza for himself. The animals of the park, including the Raccoons and pigeons act like the police as they try to make Surly surrender. The short is also brilliantly intertwined with an actual heist that is going on in a bank across the street from the park. For a ten minute short, it does a fine job at mixing both scenarios, and even punching out some clever laughs. I should also mention that the original short is more geared towards an older audience, which I think is one of the MANY reasons this movie does not work.
This is what most people would call a "bad" film. I say it's mediocre leering towards being bad, if that makes any sense at all. I don't hate this film like many critics seem to. But while I don't hate it, I still couldn't say that it's a good movie, or one children would enjoy. It's a mix bag of many decisions that ultimately did not work out.
First off is the tone of the movie. As I mention before, this movie was based on a short, and it's aware that it's a simple story. The story is composed of many gags that would appeal to the ages of 15 and up. This movie tried to expand the story, but decided to make children as the targeted audience. But that is impossible to do, since they decided to keep the same tone of the short, which is not the most kindest, nor sweetest for children under the age of eight.
The movie does replace the profanity and harsher dialogue of the movie, but that does not change that the movie is still rather mean spirited or sloppy in it's construction. The main character, Surly (played by Will Arnett), is very unlikable. Now, to be fair, not every main character has to be "likable", but they at least have to be interesting, or have something that make the audience gravitate towards them. But here.... Surly is selfish. That's it. He wants the nuts for himself and doesn't want to share them. There is nothing more complex to him than that. Everything else about him is just downright unappealing. He treats his only friend like dirt most of the time, and only thinks of himself. The movie doesn't do a very good job at showing any real growth in him. In movies where there is a character that has to grow and change, they need to have the opportunity to do so. Surly throughout the whole movie does not seem interested in changing his selfish outlook, and when the change does happen, it unnatural. The movie tries to make you believe it's sincere, but it comes off as a last minute decision, almost like they needed to make him a good guy now because the movie is almost over, and he needs to learn a lesson so everyone could like him.
All the other characters are also either unlikable or uninteresting. There's Andie (voiced by Katherine Heigl) who is the female lead of the film. To this movies credit, she's not exactly a love-interest to the main character, but she has no real personality. She's a one-dimensional, do-gooder, who is the only one who seems to give Surly a second chance (I don't know why), despite his mistakes. There's Grayson (voiced by Brendon Fresher), the parks hero. I found this character to be extremely irritating. Essentially, he is suppose to be the one that everybody believes to be courageous, but is actually a coward. Nothing about him was funny, or enduring. The worst part about it, is that the movie makes you believe for a second that he might be gone for the rest of the viewing, but then shows up out of nowhere.
Characters like Raccoon (voiced by Liam Neeson) and Mole (voiced by Jeff Dunham) are one-dimensional characters as well, so I didn't care for them. Quiet a shame in fact, seeing as I like Liam Neeson, and his character would have been a very funny villain, had they decided do more with him, and give him better material. And the robbers, who are also in the movie, are not nearly as cleverly used in this film as they where in the short. One of the highlights of the short was how they blended both the conflict of the real life robbers, with the animals. The film unfortunately looses focus of whats going with them, relying mostly on pathetic fart jokes and pointless humor as filler.
The only characters I generally cared about and enjoyed were Buddy the Rat, and Precious the guard dog. Buddy is shown to be undeniably loyal to Surly throughout the film. He doesn't say anything at all, but his expressions speak for him. Yes, I'm aware that many have commented that he looks like Remy from "Ratatouille", but that's beside the point. He was actually kind, and even rather cute, and Surly constantly treated him horribly. I felt sympathy for him. And then there is Precious, the guard dog. Maybe it's because I love dogs, but this little Pug was the only character that could actually make me crack a genuine smile throughout this film. She was cute, had the best lines, was actually funny, and designed nicely.
Speaking of the design, the look of the film should be talked about. While the animation of this movie is not nearly as good or as impressive like Pixar's, or DreamWorks, it still has some nice elements. Compare to the original short, the animation is far better. The animals look more like real animals, with the squirrels looking fluffy and cute. You can see that they wanted the character designs to look more cartoon-like, which is also understandable. Not every computer-generated film needs to look realistic. The background design is nice, although I think the colors are just a tad too bright. The animation is definitely not the best, but not horrible.
I could go on writing about all the problems this film has. Despite the fact that this is suppose to be a comedy, most of the jokes do not work. They overcomplicated what was essentially a very simple story. The story is sloppy, the characters uninspiring, the message is just stamped on right at the end without fleshing out, it takes place in the 50's but has songs like "Gangnam Style" playing in the background, etc.
But as much as I can complain about it, I still really can't hate this film. First off, when I saw the trailers for "The Nut Job", nothing in me said this was going to be a winner. And it turns out I was right. Most people who have seen it, either say it's bad, or just ok. So, I didn't feel let down, or angry because this film did not live up to any expectations...because I didn't have any to begin with. Yes, I hate the fart jokes, and yes, the plot is horribly written, but it was not the kind of movie that made me mad, or disappointed about movie-making in general. Perhaps not expecting anything from it, improved my viewing of this film. I suppose if I were to watch it again, my feelings of it might change, perhaps worse than it is now. But regardless of what mood your are in when watching it, this movie could never be good, because it has too many faults that keep it from being so.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of this movie, is that it could have had potential, had it been done differently. I think the tragedy of some bad films is that the idea can sometimes sound compelling, but is executed terribly. That is the case of this film. It was based on a clever short, but failed to improve upon it, or stretch it out in a creative way. I have a theory that this would have done better if they had not tried to targeted for young children, but for an older audience. Like I said before, the original had a tone suitable for a teens and adults, which also explains why this film can feel rather mean-spirited. That tone would have been accepted if the film was geared for an older audience. It would have given the film a better identity. As it stands, it's simply a mess.
"The Nut Job" is definitely not the best animated film of 2014. While the animation is decent, it suffers from a poorly told story, characters who are unlikeable, and humor that quite frankly, is not funny. If you really want to watch it, just wait till it's on DVD. If anything, watch the short that this movie was based on. Believe me when I say it is much better. I will be attaching a link of the video at the end.Thankfully, this is the first animated film of this year, so hopefully the rest of the line-up is much more enjoyable. As for this flick, I give it 3.5/10 bags of popcorn.
Thank you for being so patient and until then, keep reading, keep writing. Bye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y5ZRcsYP5o
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