Peter Lepeniotis
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
Inspired by his hilarious and much-acclaimed 2005 animated short “Surly Squirrel,” “Toy Story 2” animator director and co-writer Peter Lepeniotis has expanded it into a full-length 3D feature.
Oh sure, one could appreciate the weird ’50s noir vibe being pushed by Peter Lepeniotis (who worked as an animator on such films as Toy Story 2 and Fantasia 2000) or the desire to parallel the adult and ankle biter storylines, but for the most part, the movie is all pretense and very little payoff.
Director Peter Lepeniotis, a former animator who worked on Toy Story 2, muddles the story further by overlaying a needless plot about a bank robbery as humans and varmints vie for their treasures.
Director Peter Lepeniotis previously served as an animator on the brilliant Toy Story 2 but here he loses focus on what works in animated features.
In 2005, former Disney animator Peter Lepeniotis (Toy Story 2, Fantasia 2000) directed “Surly Squirrel,” a computer-animated short about a foulmouthed municipal rodent who conspires with his rat friend to steal pizza from a park trash can across the street from an in-progress bank robbery.
MARK: Here to save us from the rest of the January dreck is “The Nut Job”, a movie…nay, FILM…that makes all 3 “Toy Story” flicks combined jealous.
The premise sound encouraging enough in concept, its heist plot setting itself up as a cross between 2000's " Small Time Crooks " and 2008's " The Bank Job "?but with woodland creatures.
The film isn't really witty enough to make adults laugh, although it's chock full of references to 40's noir crime movies (it's like an animated homage to Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks," which itself reached back to 1942's "Larceny, Inc."), and it's a little plot heavy for little kids, although they'll probably enjoy the adventure (and fart jokes?!).
One of the rat characters looks like it was lifted pixel-for-pixel from "Ratatouille" — assuming Remy had lost the restaurant and gone on a six-month bender.
It was not long ago when Will Arnett mined gold with a curt, hilarious voice-acting role in Pixar’s Ratatouille as intimidating cook Horst, who brags about conquests of killing a man with his thumb.
A conflict over ransacking a nut cart ends in Surly’s banishment, but when he and Buddy discover a nut shop—owned by a group of thieves attempting to tunnel under a bank vault across the street—the “ Ocean’s Eleven meets Ratatouille with a dash of Over The Hedge ” plot commences.
And just like that, Surly -- accompanied by a mute rat sidekick shamelessly ripped off from Pixar's "Ratatouille" -- finds himself banished from the park and sent to live amid the unknown perils of the inner city.
Will Arnett (Surly Squirrel) provided the voice of a human chef in the animated Ratatouille, and clearly wanted to see how the other half lives.
Perhaps director Peter Lepeniotis and his co-writer, Lorne Cameron ("Ratatouille"), modeled their movie so closely on classic Hollywood crime flicks that they accidentally made one.
In 2005, former Disney animator Peter Lepeniotis (Toy Story 2, Fantasia 2000) directed “Surly Squirrel,” a computer-animated short about a foulmouthed municipal rodent who conspires with his rat friend to steal pizza from a park trash can across the street from an in-progress bank robbery.
Oh sure, one could appreciate the weird ’50s noir vibe being pushed by Peter Lepeniotis (who worked as an animator on such films as Toy Story 2 and Fantasia 2000) or the desire to parallel the adult and ankle biter storylines, but for the most part, the movie is all pretense and very little payoff.
Credit Disney vet Ken Duncan and the artists at Canadian outfit ToonBox Entertainment with designing what is quite possibly the cutest pack of scavengers to hit the screen since Don Bluth (“An American Tail,” “The Secret of NIMH”) put down his pencil.
The overall mood resembles a furry, nut-based version of Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing."
Credit Disney vet Ken Duncan and the artists at Canadian outfit ToonBox Entertainment with designing what is quite possibly the cutest pack of scavengers to hit the screen since Don Bluth (“An American Tail,” “The Secret of NIMH”) put down his pencil.
As such, one can get the impression that this is a big screen adaptation of “Revolt of the Beavers,” the anticapitalist children's musical glimpsed in 1999's Cradle Will Rock.
Beyond the general idea, however, Lepeniotis and co-writer Lorne Cameron (2006's " Over the Hedge ") bring nothing to the material that is fresh or engaging.
Writer/director Peter Lepeniotis was an animator at Disney/Pixar, while co-writer Lorne Cameron worked on Disney’s “Brother Bear” and DreamWorks “Over the Hedge.”
That's a shame, because there's fun in the basic premise of the film, even despite the obvious debt owed to 2006's "Over the Hedge," which -- like "The Nut Job" -- tells the story of a group of woodland animals who stage the mother of all heists.
And so, with the animals’ goal so easily achieved, Lepeniotis and co-writer Lorne Cameron (“Over the Hedge”) are left to fall back on stale twists, such as revealing Raccoon as an “Animal Farm”-style tyrant who manipulates his herd according to the motto “Animals are controlled by the amount of food they have.”
Director Peter Lepeniotis, working with co-writer Lorne Cameron (Over the Hedge), could have let the two heists, the animal and the human one, parallel each other in a more ingenious way.
A conflict over ransacking a nut cart ends in Surly’s banishment, but when he and Buddy discover a nut shop—owned by a group of thieves attempting to tunnel under a bank vault across the street—the “ Ocean’s Eleven meets Ratatouille with a dash of Over The Hedge ” plot commences.
The premise sound encouraging enough in concept, its heist plot setting itself up as a cross between 2000's " Small Time Crooks " and 2008's " The Bank Job "?but with woodland creatures.
The Sword in the Stone (1963)
Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
influenced The Nut Job (2014)
Characters
The design seems a little too familiar, though: Buddy’s design owes a little too much to Remy in Ratatouille, and Surly and his love interest/apologist squirrel Andie (Katherine Heigl) are dead ringers for computerized versions of the squirrels in Disney’s The Sword In The Stone.
Alas, Surly is performed by Will Arnett (2010's " When in Rome "), whose hard, edgy vocal quality would work better for a villain.
A conflict over ransacking a nut cart ends in Surly’s banishment, but when he and Buddy discover a nut shop—owned by a group of thieves attempting to tunnel under a bank vault across the street—the “ Ocean’s Eleven meets Ratatouille with a dash of Over The Hedge ” plot commences.
"The Nut Job" could have been a squirrelly version of "Ocean's Eleven": It has a love interest, Andie (Katherine Heigl), and a chauvinist buffoon, Grayson (Brendan Fraser), but the similarities end there.
Not that you’d expect “The Nut Job” to be “Ocean’s Eleven” in cartoon (or cartoonier) form.
The single wide-shot at the end of A Bug’s Life conveys more about a park setting than The Nut Job does in almost 90 minutes, and the city is empty of any people or animals not strictly tied to the central plot.
The Nut Job (like The Italian Job, but terrible) is a Canadian/Korean co-production.
The writing is innocuous but charming and exists in a comfortable spot, never aiming for the ingenuity of Pixar films like the recent Inside Out but never settling for lowbrow and obnoxious punchlines like the disastrous 2014 film The Nut Job .
Once the opening credits end, it turns out "The Nut Job" is far more "Romper Room" than "Step Brothers."