Sing

Music is an action that separates human beings from any other animal on our planet. The act that a different set of sounds manages to bring delight to one of our senses is something apparently other species can’t experience. Sing tries to play to our sense of hearing by showcasing a cute story full of popular hit songs.

Sing takes place in an animal metropolis similar to that of another 2016 animated film Zootopia. The main character is Buster (Matthew McConaughey) a koala in charge of a theater near bankruptcy. In order to keep his theater alive, Buster organizes a singing competition similar to that of American Idol. The big money prize motivates an array of different characters with different reasons for entering. These include: a gorilla trying to get out of a life in crime (played by Taron Egerton), an overworked mother of 24 piglets who is often ignored by her husband (played by Reese Witherspoon), a shy elephant (Tori Kelly), an arrogant mouse (Seth MacFarlane), and a teen-prodigy porcupine (Scarlett Johansson).

The film’s story had a plot that at once surprised me for the stakes that it was setting up for its characters. Clearly there can only be one winner in the competition and yet to the audience, most of the competitors seem worthy of the prize. It reminded me, surprisingly, of the boxing film Warrior, where the audience was also divided between needy competitors of a single prize. However, I was a bit disappointed that Sing ended up shying away from making a decision and it went for a typical ending that really brought down the potential that most adults were seeing in it.

Nevertheless the story is cute enough for your enjoyment, and the film is sprinkled with enough hits to keep you entertained and from noticing too many flaws. The voice cast is impressive enough on paper, although on the screen most are interchangeable except for Taron Egerton; the star of Kingsman managed to wow us all with an incredible set of singing pipes, who knew?!

In the end Sing is an enjoyable film, that only gets a lesser rating in this review because it showed it had the potential to be so much better, but shied away from taking too big a leap.

6.8/10