‘Sing’ Film Review

Grade: D+

Illumination Entertainment has failed this year with their box-office hit, yet shameful film, ‘The Secret Life of Pets’. With ‘Sing’, it looks like they may still have some of that charm that has made ‘Despicable Me’, ‘Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax’, and ‘Minions’ animated masterpieces; except the only problem is unlike those films, ‘Sing’ is a clunky mess that hasn’t figured out a way to set up what could be lovable characters that could instantly become action figures and toys to fill up the rooms of children everywhere. (It’s possible this movie is succeeding at the box-office based on Christmas returns, so toys are sure to happen.) If ‘Zootopia’ meshed with the likes of ‘America’s Got Talent’, and ‘American Idol’, we would have ‘Sing’. Despite the title, ‘Sing’ is less of a musical, and more of a comedy in the style of ‘Noises Off!’ and ‘Footlight Frenzy’, wherein everything on stage that could go wrong does, and it’s up to the director/manager/host to keep everything together while the cast/variety of talent deals with problems of their own.