The movie starts out in live action with a brother and sister. The sister is played by Anya Taylor-Joy. She got a passport and wants to travel before college as she is telling her brother. The house is very bright and colorful. They live in New York City. Then a very generic song starts about adventure and wonder. Every “song” in this movie is the actors talking while music plays. No actual singing occurs. After the happy go lucky song stops the scene immediately cuts to night with police sirens and a cop telling the girl that “there has been an accident” They’re parents who are never shown have been killed offscreen in a car accident in a movie advertised as an animated spy adventure! Remember this is also a kids movie. The movie cuts to four years later and the house has become devoid of color and Anya has become jaded and cynical. She gets in an argument with the brother and he runs away to a toy exhibit that has Playmobil in it. Anya catches up to the brother and as they are arguing more a Playmobil lighthouse lights up out of nowhere and a rainbow shoots out of it and the next scene is now animated in the Playmobil world. There is new explanation how or why they are there. It takes about twenty minutes to get to the animated world that the movie trailer suggests. This movie is also one hour and fifty minutes which is long for a movie like this.
So once Anya and here brother land in the Playmobil world she looks like herself as a Playmobil figure and her brother is a Viking. They have landed in the middle of a Viking-pirate war. There is a clever scene of Anya trying to walk with her less-opposable body. The brother gets kidnapped by pirates and they teleport away. Anya is on her own now as she sees signs for other towns or play sets in Playmobil. This is stolen right from the Lego movies. Anya runs into a guy named Del voiced by Jim Gaffigan, who is funny enough for a low rate kids movie. He is improvising since I’m pretty sure the writers probably didn’t develop his character.
Cut to the Roman civilization world and it turns out the brother was captured by King Maximus voiced by Adam Lambert. Cue a generic bad guy song which is once again just talking with music over it. Kenan Thompson plays a pirate lord who helps the brother escape. Back to Anya and Del as Anya asks Del for help to find his brother in return for gold that Anya found in the Viking-pirate war.
Del owes money to a crime lord named Glinara. Every new scene in this movie feels like a new plot, forgetting about characters for thirty minutes at a time. This movie has Attention Deficit Disorder.
Del tells Anya he has a friend who can help steal something of value because she has no more gold. This is where they get the help of Rex Dasher. The guy that the trailer says the movie is about. Daniel Radcliffe is having fun with his lines and is funny for a juvenile audience. They steal the thing and Rex disappears for the rest of the movie. Del and Anya get captured and see Glinara who is a Jabba the Hut looking creature with fins. They get separated and Anya ends up in a fairy land. A fairy voiced by Meghan Trainor sings a generic song about helping and friendship and teleports Anya to her brother. Once again every new scene is it’s own subplot forgetting about the previous plot threads.
So everyone defeats Maximus and this seemed to be the adventure that Anya wanted so that’s the poor excuse for a lesson this movie tries to teach. What I deciphered from the movie was that once Anya's lust for adventure was fulfilled that she can go back to her miserable life I guess. This movie has no idea what audience it’s trying to relate to, there is really nothing for adults, and little kids might like the animation but not follow the lack of story. There is no direction and there are subplots that are unresolved. There is barely any ironic enjoyment and that enjoyment comes from Daniel Radcliffe just acting the thin character that was written for him with what seems to be sarcastic enthusiasm. I don’t recommend this movie for children, and for adults looking for a "so bad it’s good movie", the Rex Dasher scenes are the only ones. 1/2 🍔
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