First up, if you are going to call your movie Epic then you have to realise that you are making a big promise right from the start. So does it live up to it's grandiose title? Well, partly.
Epic sees Mary Katherine (Amanda Seyfried), who prefers M.K. arriving to stay with her estranged father, Dr Bomba (Jason Sudeikis), after the unspecified demise of her mother. Dr Bomba is a crazy recluse who believes small humanoid's with an advanced civilisation are living in the forest. Funnily enough, he's right.
While trying to escape from her father's loony antics, M.K. stumbles into the middle of a battle and the dying queen of the Leaf Men (Beyonce Knowles) shrinks her down to their size and sets her on a, dare I say it, epic quest.
Okay, let's address the title first. Epic lives up to it's name sporodically with some spectacularly animated scenery and battles between the Leafmen (good guys) and the Boggans (bad guys) that seem to be pushing for the same sort of scale as Lord of the Rings. They don't make it, but they do need to get some points for trying.
And really trying also seems to be the problem. This is a movie of set pieces. It moves from fighting, to hiding, to a very clever scene with a mouse (trust me, it's a highlight) but it seems disjointed and in between it's just kind of meh.
Everything you want is there. Comic relief characters - and the slugs who provide most of this are good, a nice sinister bad guy, charismatic heroes, the heroine who starts out way out of her depth who grows and (if you have seen the movie feel free to groan at this) ultimately blossoms. It is an enjoyable movie, but it just seems like too much attention was given to the eye candy leaving the rest of the movie kinda forgettable.
I know, I am a grown man critiquing a kid's movie so I took the liberty of asking the experts...
J (9) - "It was good. I liked the slugs. I liked that green guy too*. I didn't like the bad guys or the frog" *refers to one of the main Leafmen characters, Nod (Josh Hutcherson).
M (5) - "The slugs were funny. The frog was bad"
So there you go. Make of that what you will.
I probably wouldn't recommend it for very young children and there are a few sword fights and punch ups, and of course the previously mentioned *cough* epic battles, but at the end of the day Epic is harmless, if forgettable, fun. I'd recommend trying for an adults at kids prices kind of deal though.
In six words - This isn't a Tinkerbell fairy movie.
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