Moomins on the Riviera (2014)

Strong and Moving!

Absolutely Fantastic

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Visually the cartoon was OK, but it totally ignored any number of excellent plots from the originals.Had pirates, except they behaved absurdly. And did not fit.Then sent them to the Riviera, where they were obviously out of place.A complete botch.Why does no one in the world of commercial cinema accept that a successful original is best treated with respect?

I so wanted to like this film. The books, the fuzzy-felt TV series, even the newer young children's books are all fabulous.Presumably the original Finnish version is up to scratch. Visually it's great, the music's pretty good. The English version though is appalling. The translation is dry and humourless and voice acting poor. Where is the subtle characterisation of the originals - shouldn't the Snorkmaiden be coquettish and slightly insecure rather than just a cow? I do a better Moominpappa reading the stories to my boy than the voice actor here.The worst thing is that this vandalism must have been done by a team that just don't "get" the Moomins. They should be treasured, not treated like this.

The movie is so bad I reactivated my IMDb account just to write this review.I suppose this film is for serious Moomins fans. The only positive thing I can say is the colour and painting are beautiful. The story is not even continuous. The voice acting is worse than that of kids TV. I was of high anticipation of the film, and I really wanted to care for these characters, but half way through the movie I just gave up. These characters are too bohemian for my liking, and too forgiving for everything just to pick up the pace of the movie. So in conclusion, I hate this film.

Beautiful backgrounds and colour design, but everything else was bad. I didn't like the movie much at all. The script, voice acting and pacing/storytelling were especially bad. Also the character animation was mediocre and lifeless. It desperately needed a proper English localisation & casting/voice direction, or just leave it in Finnish/Swedish with subs.The English voices were fairly weak, especially Moomin himself.I thought the script was lazy and messy - the way they throw in Tove Jansson quotes/jokes with no context or the wrong context annoyed me so much. They didn't turn the material into a movie script at all. Note: I'm a big Moomin fan AND very critical of animated movies so maybe other people would like it way more than me?P.S You know what? If you're a Moomin fan, the movie -IS- worth seeing, for the opening titles with Snufkin alone.