Two By Two
Directors: Sean McCormack, Toby Genkel
Actors: Dermot Magennis, Ava Connolly, Callum Maloney, Tara Flynn
Release Date: Sunday 1st March 2015
Running time: Belgium minutes
Animation outside the Hollywood system that tries to ape a typical Dreamworks or Sony production can come across as second hand. If South African production Khumba felt like another Madagascar, then this euro pudding (with Galway’s Moetion Films in the mix) can as a bit of Ice Age about it.
But the amiable Two By Two (or Ooops, Noah Is Gone as it was once known/is known in some parts) just about manages to sidestep those awkward comparisons to entertain.
Finny (Maloney) and dad Dave (Megennis) are two Nesterians always on the lookout for a new home. When word comes through that a flood is coming and that Noah has built an Ark for most of the animals, Finny and Dave find that they are unfortunately not on the list. Sneaking on board with the jackal-like Grymps – mum Hazel (Flynn) and daughter Leah (Connolly) - an accident sees the cubs dunked into the sea and separated from their parents. Finny and Leah reach land but with the water rising they are forced to seek higher ground while Dave and Hazel struggle to turn the Ark around and search for the cubs...
By and large Two By Two does what’s expected of it. It toddles along getting into mini- adventures, all the while turning enemies Finny and Leah into friends. The writers lob in the predictable villains – this time two hungry but clumsy griffins hunt them down and use the rising levels of water to put a sense of rising fear (there is a fun action sequence when the gang are chased Temple Of Doom style through tunnels by a gushing torrent).
But how it disguises the ending is what keeps Two By Two watchable to the end. There are no nestarians or grymps around today – Did these plucky heroes make it to safety and just die out later or, gulp, not make it to the end credits? It’s a children’s movie so one can expect a happy ending... but in what shape will that ending be? Fair play to the writers for keeping their cards close to their chest with that one.
The animation is nice; Finny, with his garish colours and big eyes, is cute; and there are a few gags to be had (nestarians loosing blue gas when scared gets the laughs its after). Not bad.
