‘Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature’
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We took two young girls (6 and 4) to see ‘Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature’. It proved to be a mixed experience.
This is an animated thriller/adventure film. Aimed at young viewers, it is of course also a comedy. Which brings me to my first observation — the film elicited few laughs from the children and adults present. The exception was the young father in the row in front of us who laughed at all the slapstick comedy as well as the jokes aimed at adults. (As his family seldom laughed, they must have been quite embarrassed). The jokes were very hit or miss, with most being misses, as indicated by those awkward silent moments following failed punchlines. But for a kids movie, the above comments are probably irrelevant as our young girls declared this movie to be even better than Nut Job 1.
The actors providing the voices for the animated characters included Will Arnett as the voice of Surly a male Squirrel and main character, Katherine Heigl as Andie, a female squirrel and Surly’s companion, Maya Rudolph as Precious the Bulldog who falls for Frankie, the Mayor’s French Bulldog (voice of Bobby Cannavale). My favourite characters were Heather Muldoon (voice of Isabela Moner), the spoilt and aggressive daughter of the Mayor, and Mr Feng, the leader of the white mice (voice of Jackie Chan). Cute Mr Feng leads a tribe of martial art trained white mice, and reacts very badly whenever called ‘cute’.
To sum up the plot — After the animals blow up/burn down the Nut Factory in which they had been living and eating, they look for a home. Finding a comfortable park, they run into Mayor Muldoon (Bobby Moynihan) who is determined to develop the park into an amusement park. When the animals find that they cannot defeat the Mayor, his developers and pest exterminators, they go in search of a new home and stumble on Mr Feng and his white mice, who end up helping the animals defeat the Mayor. They restore the park and all live happily ever after.
It seems that the movie is a hit with kids and has some moments of interest for adults as well, including Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be wild’ as the film’s theme song.
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