Strange Magic (2015)
Directed by Gary Rydstrom
A love potion works its devious charms on fairies, elves and the swamp-dwelling Bog King as they all try to possess the potion for themselves.
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What critics say influenced Strange Magic
A couple of characters seem influenced by sisters Anna and Elsa from Frozen and a brawny blowhard is very similar to Beauty and the Beast's Gaston.
Directed by Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom, with a screenplay by Rydstrom, Irene Mecchi and David Berenbaum (from Lucas' story), Strange Magic has many of the same narrative elements as Disney's smash-hit Frozen – with sisterly tensions seemingly carried over directly – but comic relief character Sunny (Elijah Kelley) is no Olaf the Snowman, just an over-excitable singing elf who is a permanent strain to watch.
If Lucasfilm had bought Disney instead of the other way around, the smash hit “Frozen’’ might have turned out like “Strange Magic,’’ a jaw-droppingly terrible animated musical that mismatches George Lucas’ inane story about a pair of fairy princesses to an oddball selection of the “Star Wars’’ creator’s favorite pop tunes.
Given that wised-up gender politics have largely become the princess-pic norm (as demonstrated by superior recent Disney releases like “Frozen” and “Maleficent”), Marianne’s bratty makeover feels more like a sop to convention than anything else, which could also be said of just about every aspect of this thoroughly derivative and unengaging fantasy.
Inspired, in part, by William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and possessing the same general feeling of some of the more fucked-up kids' movies from the '70s and '80s (things like Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" and Disney's infamous "The Black Cauldron"), "Strange Magic" is set in a mythical land of fairies, trolls, and imps.
“Strange Magic” borrows the notion of fairies having misadventures with a love potion in the woods from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the increasingly popular, “Glee”-ful musical approach of “Happy Feet,” “Pitch Perfect” and “ Moulin Rouge ” (on which composer and musical director Marius De Vries also worked).