Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2005. That movie is "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure".
Now, for those of you who don't know, this movie is an adaptation of the classic children's board game called "Candy Land". And I was kinda surprised to find out that this sort of movie even existed, because I don't think I've ever seen an animated adaptation of a board game being turned into a movie. I know of live-action movies that were based off board games such as "Clue: The Movie", which is still one of my favorite mystery comedies ever made. And I also know "Battleship" got a live-action adaptation, which I haven't seen, and I've heard nothing except horrible things about it. But as for animated adaptations of board games, I think this may be the only one that I can think of that actually exists. I could be totally wrong on that, but as far I as know, this is the only one I've ever encountered.
Now if you've never played "Candy Land" before, well, then you're either too young to know what it is, or you just had a really sheltered childhood for some reason. But anyway, the concept of "Candy Land" was that you picked up cards that also represented colors on the game board, and you draw each time until you got to the end of the game with the right colors. And of course, there was stuff like shortcuts that helped you advance further onto the board, and other spaces that prevented you from advancing on your turn via skips and such. And I know that sounds like an abridged version of how I described it, but believe me when I say that it was actually a pretty fun game for it's time. Mind you now, I haven't played it in a LONG time, so I obviously can't say how exactly it has changed in updated versions, if at all. But still, I do remember the game being pretty fun the last time I played it. Granted, as a child, I always had more fun with other board games such as "The Game Of Life", "Sorry", and "Monopoly" to a certain extent. Though this is honestly just more of a personal preference, because I just loved playing those games so much as a child.
But anyway, I'm getting off topic here, I should be focusing on tonight's movie. So, like I said, I know this thing is based off the classic board game, and I also know it's pretty short, too. It's just under an hour long. So if this movie ends up being terrible, at least my pain will be short and sweet. But I am hoping for this thing to at least be decent. I'm also curious to see how exactly you turn a children's board game into a movie? Again, I'm hoping for it to be decent, but the only way I'm gonna find out if it is decent at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure".
3 minutes later
I will say this much, guys, I do kinda like how this world actually has the colored spaces that you would see on an actual "Candy Land" game board. So at least they got that much down. So far, the movie hasn't really taken off yet, but I am kinda hoping for it to get interesting sooner rather than later.
7 minutes later
OK, I have a question, and I know it's still early for me to be asking this, but I'm kinda curious about something. So we've just been introduced to our villain, Lord Licorice, who wants Princess Lolly's scepter so that he can take over Candy Land. My question here is why exactly does he need this scepter in order for his plan to work? I ask this because we haven't been given any real details as to what this scepter is suppose to do. The king said that it's supposed to be used for something special at this ceremony, but we don't know what it IS yet. So again, what exactly makes this scepter so special for Lord Licorice to steal from if we don't even know what it's supposed to do yet? I understand this thing is a children's film, however, I'm not a child, and I already have questions that I'm not totally sure will even get answered, if it all, by the time this thing is done.
10 minutes later
Wait, so instead of taking the obvious route from a sign that LITERALLY points towards the castle, instead, Jib is forced to take the route with the dark forest because it's a "shortcut", according to Mint here, who just went inside. You know, guys, I'm really beginning to despise Mint at this point, because all he's doing is just creating a conflict that really shouldn't exist in the first place. All Jib should do is just leave his ass in the forest and go towards where the castle is like he was suppose to do! But no, he's not doing that. And it's only making him look like an idiot.
3 minutes later
So, the reason why Lord Licorice wanted the scepter in the first place was to stick it inside his cauldron and create vines with it. That...was INCREDIBLY underwhelming. I thought, maybe, he was gonna use it to, I don't know, create some giant beast to terrorize all of Candy Land so that he can take over Candy Castle. But no, he just used it to create thorn-looking vines. Now unless he creates something else with it, then this is probably one of the dumbest plans I've ever seen from any villain in a long time. And that's saying something.
2 minutes later
Well, guys, I can say this much. Even though Lord Licorice's plan is still pretty stupid, I *will* say that this song here from him is actually kinda catchy. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but I'm kinda digging this song here. It really is that interesting.
14 minutes later
OK, I have a stupid question that I know won't get answered, but I want to ask this. So Mint, being the dumbass that he is, decides to take another shortcut that will lead our heroes to the castle. It leads them to this chocolate swamp with a bridge that is broken in half. Jib tries to jump the bridge, but he falls into the chocolate swamp. Now I should mention that Princess Lolly has her scepter back, so WHY didn't she just create a bridge with her scepter so that the rest of our heroes can get across safely? It should, by all rights, be that fucking easy! Unless the scepter itself isn't really that magical to begin with, then what the hell is it's usage for anyways?! Is it just there to be a fucking prop that can only be used for the ceremony? Again, I understand that this is a children's film, but I don't think children are THAT fucking stupid to not use common sense in a situation in which you could just use magic to create a bridge with a scepter. But hey, perhaps maybe I'm just putting *too much* common sense here, so what the hell do I know?
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where to begin with? Well, I suppose I can start by saying this. Before I delve into the issues that I have with this movie, I am going to say that children will adore this. Especially if you're someone who's associated with kids in someway, whether you have children of your own, or if you have a niece or nephew and if they like seeing pretty colorful things moving on screen, then I will say that they will love this. Though I must stress that only if they're like REALLY young kids around the ages of 5 years old. I almost wanted to add in 6 year olds, but I'm not totally certain 6 year olds would even enjoy this. However, I will get into all that later when I try to recommend this movie.
So with that being said, let's get into the review proper by discussing the writing. Now I've touched upon this subject before when it comes to adaptations of something, be it a comic book, video game, or even a board game in this instance, in which you have to take certain liberties with what you're adapting into a movie. And even if the source material you're adapting from isn't exactly 100%, you can still try to make it stand out on it's own merits. A great example of that, at least for me, would have to be the 1994 "Street Fighter" movie. The movie was barely, if it all, loyal to the source material, but it still worked because of it's goofy tone, and writing that was sorta bad, but still hilarious to watch because of how charmingly cheesy it was. So whether or not it's loyal to the source material doesn't really bother me, personally, as long as it's able to stand on it's own merits. Now I say this, because this movie is, quite honestly, one of the most loyal adaptations I've seen in quite a while. Now granted, it has been years since I last played "Candy Land", so I was totally lost on what the hell kind of plot that game had. But based on what I just saw, it definitely seemed like this movie was a straight-up adaptation of the board game, in which it captures the look and feel of how the game was laid out, from the colored spaces that you see in this world along with the shortcuts that were also included from the board game. So I will definitely give this movie credit for going to the lengths of staying true to what it is.
Unfortunately, however, this leads into a major problem with this film's writing, which would be the characters. You see, the story here we have for this movie only works because the characters are IDIOTS. Now when I say characters, I'm gonna kinda exclude Lord Licorice here, because he's more or less played up as a non-threatening villain. And I do mean that literally, he is *not* threatening in the slightest. No, the real idiots are our heroes. And I'm gonna start with Jib. For the most part, Jib, who is a gingerbread man (or kid, in this case) is the only one who has some level of common sense. He's on a journey to go to Candy Castle to deliver the frosting for the ceremony, and he feels like he has a sense of responsibility, in which he tries to get to the castle on time before the last gumball drops. And yeah, I should mention, for some strange reason, gumballs are basically the equivalent to how time works in this world. Don't ask, it doesn't really make any sense, and I don't think it was really trying to make sense either, so I'm gonna let that part slide.
Getting back to point, along the way, he meets up with another one of our characters named Mr. Mint, or Mint since he doesn't like to be formal with his name. And this is where the idiocy starts to pop up when it comes to Jib, because the moment that Mint shows up on screen is where this movie slowly starts to fall apart. Now again, I mentioned earlier that this movie works in the shortcuts that were in the board game. And it does work...in a way. Because most of the time, these shortcuts are suggested by Mint. Such as at one point, he suggests to Jib that they should take a shortcut through the Licorice woods. Jib keeps telling Mint that they shouldn't go through there because there is a sign that *literally* points towards a path to where the castle is. To which Mint says that the shortcut takes them to the castle there faster, and thinks that Jib is afraid of the dark. To which Jib says no, and the thing that boggles my mind watching that scene is that even though Jib wants to get to the castle on time, he's literally wasting time trying to argue with Mint on how to get there! And as for Mint, he goes straight into the forest, where Jib slowly starts to follow him shortly afterwards, because I guess that sense of responsibility on his part didn't fucking matter anymore the moment he decided to follow Mint, thus making him kind of an idiot. However, this all, conveniently, ends up working in the end because they end up finding Lord Licorice's lair and end up discovering his plan on taking over Candy Land. So that's one example of character driven idiocy.
But that's not compared to the second bit of idiocy, which also leads into the *dumbest* moment of the entire movie. So later on, our two heroes meet up with Princess Lolly, who has her own sidequest in the film of trying to find her scepter that was stolen from her by Lord Licorice's minions. That eventually gets resolved, to a point, in which they laid a trap involving sticky peanut butter before she gets her scepter back. Which then leads into the dumbest moment of the film, in which they take another shortcut, courtesy of Mint, that leads into the chocolate swamp. Now as I mentioned earlier, there was a bridge there that was broken, so they have to figure out on how to cross it. Jib mentions that Princess Lolly can fly, and so she does just that, as she flew across the broken bridge. Then shortly afterwards, Jib tries to jump across, only to fall short and land in the chocolate swamp. And here's where it gets STUPID. Now I could obviously bring up the bullshit about Princess Lolly just using the scepter to make a bridge so that everyone can cross it, but I'm just going to assume the scepter isn't really magical at all, so I'm gonna try to ignore that stupid bit.
What I can't ignore, however, is what she does afterwards. See, after Jib falls into the chocolate swamp, she tries to figure out how to get him out of there. So what does she do? She sets the scepter on the bridge before diving into the swamp in order to save him...while completely ignoring the fact that she literally has WINGS on her back, meaning that she could've saved him by flying down to where he's at, picking him up, and flying back towards the other side of the bridge! But no, she dives into the swamp, because she's a fucking idiot! And as I mentioned before, Jib was the one who brought up that Princess Lolly can fly from before he fell into the swamp, so why didn't she just fly down there and save Jib without having to get herself stuck in the swamp?! I mean, Jib's literally just a cookie, so I'm sure he can't weight *that* much, right? But again, guys, that would require some common sense, and these characters don't really have that much of it. And on that subject, the characters here are kinda shallow and flat. I mean, they really don't have that much of a character arc. The one who comes closest to that would have to be Jib, which isn't really saying a whole lot, but it *kinda* exists within that character. Everyone else...no. Princess Lolly comes off as kind of a brat at times. Mint is suppose to be the fun-loving clown, but he was more annoying than anything, and his decisions made me kind of despise the character more than anything else. There's also this mutant creature named Jolly, and it literally has no character at all other than just being along for the ride because Mint discovered it and decides to have it travel with our heroes.
So overall, the writing here, as a kids film, works decently. However, the dumb decisions our characters make is what ultimately brings this movie down for me. With that said, I can say that the voice acting here, for the most part, works pretty well. And when I say that, it mostly works when they're hamming up their lines. The best example would have to go Mark Oliver as Lord Licorice. His performance in this thing is what sorta makes this movie worth watching. Granted, his character is about as generic as a standalone monster from Power Rangers, but what kinda makes his villain stand out a little bit is his song. And I'm gonna kinda delve into the songs for a bit, because his song is damn near catchy as hell. The rhyming of all of his lyrics are almost perfectly timed, and it's probably the only thing I actually remembered about the character, aside from his kinda stupid plan. But setting that aside, the acting here is pretty good. The only weak part about it would have to be Jib's voice actor. I'm going to assume, at the time anyway, that Jib's voice actor was still a child. And it kinda makes sense, because some of his acting in this movie felt rather weak, mostly when he has to cry. Most of that sounded pretty fake. But I will say that what he had to work with was still decent enough to where I can overlook some of his stumbles. So he's definitely not the worst child actor I've ever heard, but he's also not great either. But then again, you shouldn't really expect much when it comes to child acting anyways.
Animation here is pretty good for the most. I will say that it did look kinda cheap at times. It felt like I was watching a direct-to-video movie, which probably ended up being the case, because I couldn't imagine how this would've done in theaters without it bombing hard financially. But anyway, as with this movie's animation, aside from some stilted moments of cheap-looking animation, the art style looks pretty good and the color pallets look amazing. Just about everything in this movie looks *very* colorful, and I do like that attention to detail because, given that you're working with a movie that's based off a board game, it would make sense to try and match up to how colorful the board game looked with it's design, and it definitely shows. The character designs are all unique and they are also very colorful, too. This might be one of the most colorful-looking movies I've see in a *long* time. It's rare for me to gush over colors in a children's film, but this one is definitely one of those rare exceptions. So yeah, if it's not made any clearer, the color pallets are easily the best part of the entire movie. The animation is decent for what it is, but the colors are what helps this movie make it stand out the most.
Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music, at least in terms of it's score, is completely forgetful. The songs here are also mostly forgetful, save for Lord Licorice's song. It really is that catchy, and is most definitely the biggest highlight in terms of it's music. Mind you, the rest of the songs here aren't *bad*, per se, they're just kinda too kid-friendly for my tastes, thus is the reason why they are so forgettable. At least, to me, they are.
Overall, guys, when all is said, am I able to recommend "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure"? Well, like I said earlier, if you have kids that are around the age of 5, then yes. I can totally recommend it around that age range. Anything higher than that, then no. I really don't see any kids above the age of 5 watching this movie because they will most likely have outgrown the ultra kid-friendly nature of this film. Could I recommend it to adults? Well...I guess *maybe* if you are an animation fan, I suppose it's worth watching at least once. However, I would have to stress about the dumbass decisions that our characters make, which is what ultimately killed my interest in ever watching this movie again. Not only that, but the movie's also kinda boring, too. But then again, considering I'm not a child anymore, and this obviously wasn't made for older audiences like me, I kinda wasn't expecting much. And, lull and behold, this movie lived up to that standard. So...I guess that counts for something. Plus, I watched this thing off YouTube, and I'm kinda thankful I didn't have to spend money to watch this thing, otherwise, I probably would've been a little pissed if I had a physical copy of it. So yeah, I'm definitely not gonna be watching this thing a second time. It was interesting to watch it once, but that's all it's ever going to be worth to me. So, with that being said, I think I'm gonna go and watch a better animated film that has a somewhat more "adult" feel to it. I think I'll go and watch my copy of "Anastasia". I haven't seen it in about a year, so I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done typing and uploading this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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