Sing: A Movie Review

January 6, 2017

Illumination presents a new animated comedy, Sing (Google).

By KATHERINE NGUYEN
Staff Writer
What do you get when you cross Zootopia with Pitch Perfect? You get Sing, Illumination Entertainment’s newest 3D computer-animated musical comedy film! The movie, taking place in the universe of anthropomorphic animals, stars Buster Moon in his adventures of trying to save his show business theater with a singing competition. (It sounds a little boring and overdone, but listen: Moon is a talking koala voiced by Matthew McConaughey. It honestly doesn’t get any better than that.)
From the thousands of animals auditioning, Moon and his elderly iguana assistant, Ms. Crawley (voiced by Garth Jennings), narrow the competitors down to four animals: Rosita the housewife pig, Mike the soulful singing mouse (imagine a white Jerry with Frank Sinatra’s voice), Johnny the “Dad, I don’t want to follow the family business, I want to be a singer!” gorilla (his family business is a mob so I guess he has an excuse) and Ash, whose storyline I find inspirational. She’s a punk-rock porcupine whose talents are overshadowed by her poor excuse of a boyfriend (also a punk-rock porcupine). Then he cheats on her, so she proceeds to write her own music, finding her own voice in the process.
Two last minute additions to the competition include Gunter and Meena. The former, a overzealous European pig (and when I say European, I mean European), is paired with Rosita to liven up her boring appearance. The latter, a shy elephant who runs from her first audition, is given a second chance as a stagehand but later is given the opportunity to share her amazing voice with the world.
The definite best part of the movie is the voice actors, who are all household names. Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson play the roles of Rosita and Ash respectively, both surprising the audience with their ability to sing. Gunter’s absolutely hilarious accent is well portrayed by Nick Kroll, who has pristine control over his voice. However, perhaps the most show-stealing voices are presented by Johnny and Meena, who are portrayed by Welsh actor Taron Egerton and fan-favorite Tori Kelly, respectively.
The contrasts between Rosita’s tame and responsible personality and Gunter’s bubbly and overexcited one are excellently highlighted by the written dialogue and its execution, which incites laughter from the audience.
Another great addition to the movie is the developed mentor-mentee relationships. Your heartstrings are guaranteed to be pulled as you watch Moon guiding Meena through her fright, or Ms. Crawly dedicating time and patience to Johnny’s piano performance.
The film may be directed towards a younger audience, but that does not stop high school students from enjoying the movie. “It started off pretty slow but I absolutely loved the ending!” Megan Lee (Sr.) said. “I still can’t get the songs out of my head!”
Sing generated $284.6 million at the box office, finishing second behind Rogue One. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 69% based on 119 reviews, and it received 60/100 on Metacritic.
With its relatable characters and humorous writing, I found myself loving the movie. Each storyline teaches you a different lesson, and it showed me that regardless of where I go in the future, I will always find someone who will support me and encourage me to follow my dreams and talents, no matter what they are.

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