Ahh, KRU, you have so much potential.. Yet, somehow everything you put out seems so sub-standard, so desperate.
Your rap lyrics are like English homework assignments done by an overzealous student trying to suck up to his teacher. So's your movie scripts. They don't feel natural. From Cicak-man to Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, the dialogues just seemed forced.
I don't get it, you go to nth degree to find good actors and voice actors, then you gave them crappy scripts to work with. You really need to observe how real people talk. They show emotions, not talk about it, unless it fits the personality of the character. They do stuff, not talk about it. They whine because they're hurting, not to give more exposition. A least try to disguise it with the plot or something.
Ribbit is just the newest example of this. In the first scene, when we're introduced to the titular character, Ribbit, he was talking with his frog friends. The entirety of this conversation serves to explain the character of Ribbit. They don't show you, they tell you. You can just close your eyes and still understand everything about Ribbit. It's a waste of time, talent, and money to animate this scene.
Just make a radio show from the script, it's the same structure anyway.
Then the contradictions pop up. Ribbit said he doesn't like water. A few minutes after he said that, and confirmed by the reactions and subsequent commentary of his frog friends, something happened to push him in the water, and he exclaimed, "Hey, the water's not bad!". We'll never hear this plot point again until it pops up in the middle of the second act. It made me question whether this was supposed to be a subtle scene of him realizing something about himself that he didn't know. Maybe he's supposed to whisper his lines as opposed to loudly proclaiming them to the world.
The next scenes are all about him whining expositions to his flying squirrel friend. He rants about how he hates water, again, about how he's poisonous, how he can't jump and his other insecurities. He reminds me of a less witty Woody Allen in the movie Antz. The way he tells his flying squirrel friend, Sandy, about himself is like they've never talked about this before. If she's his best friend, she wouldn't have to ask him what's wrong every time he sighs.Then I realized, this is a movie for kids, small kids. Like the super popular cartoon show Dora The Explorer, kids need to be told everything or they'll just pester their parents about what's happening on the screen. They just need to get this character introduction thing out of the way.
After introducing the main characters and their small world, something happened to move the story in which they meet a new cast of characters. Then those characters leave after fulfulling their duties and we never see them again. This happens many times. I've compiled a small list of these characters that we'll only meet once;
- A Scientist, pops up in Ribbit's dream for no reason whatsoever.
-Three Cougar cubs, pops out of nowhere, destroys Ribbit's secret hideout while he's dreaming and forces him to go on a journey. Ribbit then climbs a tree after having an emotional breakdown at the expense of Sandy's.
-A Vampire Bat named Deepak, lives in an area in the middle of the tree, tricks Ribbit by impersonating Deepak Chopra and tells him he's actually a prince and should be kissed by a princess, so he'd join him in a trance and let's him suck his blood. He failed because of Sandy's emotional arc. Ribbit then climbs to the top of the same tree with his re-BFF Sandy to meet humans.
-A flamboyant Toucan, perches on top of the same tree to bask in the sunset/dawn, carries the BFFs to a river bank after some more moaning by Ribbit for the lack of human sighting. The reason why he didn't just send them to the human settlement will never be known.
-An Australian Cayman named Kyle(?) they met at the river. He's Australian because of Crocodile Hunter. He wants to eat them, when..
-They were saved by a German dugong couple. The male is purple, the female, pink. They gave the BFFs a log to float on.
-A French Spider they met after falling off a waterfall. He's French because he's a chef. He also wants to eat them.
Each time they meet these characters, they would explain the plot. Every. Single. Time.
If you think that this movie's like a collection of short clips with an over-arching narrative and little connection with each other, you'd be right. They're like those double 15-minute episodes of Saturday morning cartoon shows.
But then the plot kicks in. If the first half of the movie is like a roadtrip movie, the second half is completely different. This is why I just don't feel like giving you guys a a spoiler alert before, since half the movie have nothing to do with the story.
There's a murder plot involving a witch doctor, a princess, and poison frogs. Also, we meet Kyle again. That about it.
Score: Meh.
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