Once a couple animals started dancing to Gangnam Style at the 20 minute mark, I simply didn’t want to turn the movie off, I wanted to put my TV out of its misery by shoving it out the window. If the first part of this movie isn’t a giant red flag warning to anyone watching this, then I feel sorry for you. Might I recommend something more creative, wonderful, entertaining and magical for you to watch or would you like to learn more about the atrocity that is THE NUT JOB? Just kidding, I’m here to tell you about a movie you should automatically delete from your memory banks.
Surly (Arnett) is a scheming squirrel that is a part of a group of city park creatures living in an urban park. This time he’s schemed too far and caused an absurd accident that has incinerated the entire winter supplies of nuts for the park animals. The creatures are led by a raccoon (Liam Neeson) that takes the initiative to exile Surly from the park. So Surly leaves with his mute rat friend, Buddy (very creative) only to find his new scheme: Robbing a nut store that houses a couple of dimwitted human robbers looking to rob the bank next door. The rest of the story is stretched to the breaking point and feels incredibly tedious.
Surly is potentially one of the most unlikeable characters in children’s movie history because of his blatant self-absorbed attitude and the amount of snarky comments he spouts. He’s supported by a group of nauseating supporting characters. There’s Andie (Katherine Heigl), the loathsome squirrel that has a crush on Surly, but can’t quite predictably manifest her feelings and thoughts and a pug named Precious (Maya Rudolph), that is about as unintelligent as this script. Once you start seeing names like Brendan Fraser, Jeff Dunham and Stephen Lang in the credits, you’ll start to lose a little respect for these entertainers for agreeing to such an atrocity.
Somehow this movie cost an impressive $42.8 million. Scraps of that appear to have went to animation since I’ve seen more fluid artwork on Saturday morning cartoons. While some details are fine, like animal fur, other parts feel amateurishly created. It’s almost common place to have well-crafted 3D computer animated movies, but THE NUT JOB appears sluggish and drunk. There also appears to be a miscommunication between the artists and audio editors since vocal inflections sometimes don’t match the facial emotions. The fact that a sequel has been greenlit makes me cringe. Knowing that a studio, in an age of Pixar masterpieces and FROZEN, gives the thumbs up to a sequel (that I’m sure not a single living soul is asking for) makes me lose faith in everyone and everything associated with this project.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t slap a big fat zero on this, go ahead and Google the 2012 movie FOODFIGHT! and realize it could have been much worse. If cheese farts, belches and outdated pop-culture references have you in giggle fits, be my guest and waste your time. If you torture yourself and watch this, hopefully you’ll realize by the time the credits roll, when an animated Psy comes out to dance to Gangnam Style, that this is terrible movie; then go ahead and ask me about better children’s movies.
THE NUT JOB BLU RAY REVIEW
Video: (1080p HD Widescreen 1:85:1) Thanks to the HD picture, I was able to pinpoint plenty of poorly animated moments. You will too with this fine transfer.
Audio: (English 5.1 DTS-HDMA) No qualms with the vocal mixing. My biggest problem was the music which was cranked to 11.
Deleted Scenes (5:20): These are more like minimally altered scenes more than they are deleted. Either the movie was so bad I didn’t notice, but I could have swore a few of them weren’t even changed. It’s hard to believe there could be any fat left to trim from this inflated movie.
Storyboard (2:42): This is an audioless feature that speeds through some of the drawn storyboards created for specific scenes. Would have been interesting if there was any verbal context given.
The Great Nut Heist (2:06): A feature describing the plot of the movie, sometimes showing the actors voicing their scenes cut next to the scene they’re voicing. Everything is narrated by Will Arnett who was the only one willing to lie to me about how this is a “good” movie. Nothing worthwhile in this.
Animated Shorts (15:06): This is actually interesting because it features the animated shorts that inspired this unnecessary full-length feature. The first is SURLY THE SQUIRREL, which surprisingly works as a short. While the animation seems like a graduate students project, the story is so simplified that it’s an amusing 10 minutes. It’s mildly clever and well timed and paced. It actually makes me hate THE NUT JOB even more. The second one is called NUTS AND ROBBERS. This one is only about four and a half minutes and features no dialogue. It has the same characters, but better animation. As to the purpose of this, I’m not sure. It possibly feels like something that was created in the hopes of pitching the feature movie, THE NUT JOB. You can play both of these together or separately.
End Credits Sequence (3:45): Just in case you didn’t get enough Gangnam Style. You can watch the end credit sequence again although if you do, I’d suspect you’re a masochist.