The Hero of Color City – animated movie review by Fred Patten.
by Patch O'Furr
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
The Hero of Color City, directed by Frank Gladstone. 77 minutes. October 3, 2014.
Since I have already reviewed The Nut Job and Thunder and the House of Magic, I may as well review the third similar animated feature here: October 2014’s The Hero of Color City. I am reviewing it primarily to let you know about it, in case you want to see it. You’ve seen the Transformers movies, about anthropomorphized whatever-they-are’s. Now here are anthropomorphized crayons! You won’t get many opportunities to see anthropomorphized crayons.
I criticized most of the reviews of The Nut Job and Thunder and the House of Magic, which were very negative, as irrelevant because they judged the movie as an adult theatrical feature, whereas it was a children’s film. The Hero of Color City is for even younger children – preschoolers – and the reviews tend to be of two types. Those that do review it as kidnergarteners’ fare are generally positive. Those that review it for the parents who will accompany those kindergarteners are really negative. And I can’t say that I disagree with them.
Here is the plot synopsis from the review from Variety, October 2, 2014, by Geoff Berkshire:
“Lacking any of the visual sophistication customary in contemporary bigscreen toons, The Hero of Color City more closely resembles the by-the-numbers smallscreen product churned out overseas to fill time on countless tyke-oriented cable channels. The youngest members of the film’s target audience aren’t likely to care much about the lack of craft here, but grown-ups will immediately spot a generic rip-off and tune out accordingly. They won’t be missing much.