Woody Woodpecker (2017)

Woody Woodpecker (2017)

The hyperactive red-headed bird enters a turf war with a big city lawyer wanting to tear down his home in an effort to build a house to flip. A high-strung, red-headed bird battles a prominent municipal lawyer, hoping to prevent him from seizing his property, bulldozing his house, and building a mega-mansion that will turn big profits. Along the way, he wreaks havoc on the building site and drives the crew crazy.

Rating: PG (for some action, rude humor and language)

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Kids & Family

Directed By: Alex Zamm

Written By: Alex Zamm, Walter Lantz, William Robertson

On Disc/Streaming: Feb 6, 2018

Runtime: 84 minutes

Studio: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Inanely cruel villains, an unoriginal story, ham-handed performances, and reliance on farts and burps are the low lights of this awkward effort to bring back a less-than-engaging cartoon bird. The filmmakers' efforts at "homage" are restricted to naming the adult lead "Lance Walters" (Walter Lantz, get it?). Woody Woodpecker (2017) has none of the cleverness, satire, or appealing characters associated with Looney Tunes, The Muppets, and other surviving franchises from decades earlier. Other than a nice performance from Graham Verchere, whose down-to-earth Tommy seems to have stepped in from another movie, there's little to recommend. As a character, Woody Woodpecker has always been a rascally creature, bordering on insanity during his early years as a cartoon creation, masterminded by Walter Lantz and Ben Hardaway. In “Woody Woodpecker,” a 2018 effort to revive the looney bird for modern audiences, there’s a scene where Woody farts out his theme song. This is not progress. Attempting to marry live-action and CGI animation in a way that made 2010’s “Yogi Bear” some money, “Woody Woodpecker” is a fairly unendurable creation from a production team that probably has reverence for the colorful icon, but no idea how to translate ink and paint antics to the real world, electing to go as crude and obvious as possible just to get a reaction from younger viewers. “Woody Woodpecker” is bad, real bad, and its hunger to scrape the bottom of the barrel for humor is downright depressing to watch.

I wouldn't recommend the movie to anyone. I rate it 1/5 . #Moviereview #Blogging #vigalcollective.