Bar a faded yellow bar of Woodstock soap, our house was not a Peanuts house and the strip passed me by (my comic life went from The Beano to Roy of the Rovers and then traitorous dalliance with Hot Shot). While there are disadvantages of coming to such an adaptation of an institution like this cold – having no nostalgia/warmth for its history and characters – there is an upside. Having no nostalgia/warmth for its history and characters this review isn’t one of comparison, of disappointment because it fails to live up to childhood memories. It’s a review of another animated movie and sadly that’s all Snoopy And Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie is – just another animated movie.
The Peanuts Movie is one of sweetness, of innocence, of (a little) cynicism and world-weariness, of cute observation. It’s affectionate. It’s likeable. It’s nice. Screenwriters Brian and Craig Shulz, creator Charles Shulz’s son and grandson respectively, keep things low key with a homespun tale (Charlie Brown’s two previous feature length outings were adventures at summer camp and in France), emulating the comic strip with brief episodes. And the animation, bar the 3D, is in keeping with the original style – Snoopy still uses a typewriter. All this should appease fans.
But there’s just no magic, no zing.
The simple story places a new girl in the neighbourhood and it’s love at first sight for Charlie Brown (Schnapp) but everything he does to impress the redheaded girl makes him look like more of a loser. Running parallel to this is Snoopy’s flight of fancy as a devil-may-care WWI pilot who, atop his trusty flying kennel, battles the Red Baron, which at least set the pulses racing. The involvement of the perpetually enraged Lucy (Hadley Belle Miller), the blanket-loving Linus Alexander Garfin) and piano genius Schroeder (Noah Johnson) are kept to a minimum. Adults are nowhere to be seen, reduced to the wah-wah of a trombone.
The episodic style is really Peanuts’ undoing. Like little shorts that have something in common – the girl with the red hair – the movie has no momentum, no energy. But this is just for the fans and kids, yes? Fans I can’t speak for but this is the only movie I’ve brought my daughter to that she turned around halfway through and asked if we could go home. Go home? Good grief.