After winning the spelling bee for hisvschool, usual blockhead loser Charlie Brown has the confidence of his classmates including the obnoxious Lucy who has always stepped on his self-esteem, tore away the football before he can kick it and makes him pitch on a baseball mound covered in Dandy Lions. She's continuing to stalk Schroeder here, who is completely uninterested of course, only noticing her when she mistakes a bust of Beethoven for George Washington. It's obvious that these kids have the mind of adults, and that will make this animated feature of Interest to adults who may relate to how the relationship of this group of friends has its highs and lows. Even Snoopy, the dog, without speaking, has his own rules and regulations and human abilities, able to fly a kite Charlie Brown can't. When Lucy and Linus strike out at a baseball game and everybody just accepts it, then yells in frustration in CB does it, the reflection of how cruel childhood really could be towards some hits home. It's hard not to watch the cartoons from TV and the features without looking at the psychological elements Charles Schulz was trying to emphasize.
This animated musical film has its highs and lows, many of them very funny and all of them original, not seen in any of the tv specials although a lot of the familiar sitegags are back. The score is pretty decent, although the clever spelling bee song isn't really melodic. It takes a good half hour or more for them to get to the gist of the plot, the challenge of the spelling bee, and it's surprising to see Lucy actually cheering when he wins the school title. There are definite moments of cleverness, a few insipid oh, and the film does get to be a little bit over long. The psychedelic elements of the 70's may seem weird to children of a decade fifty years later, and Schroeder's nightmare is just beyond bizarre. There's a sense of nostalgia though, but Charlie Brown's desperation to achieve something is definitely a relatable goal after a subject of a song called "Failure Face". As a feature film, after all those annual holiday specials of the sixties, this doesn't measure up to those. Perhaps less in this case is more.
This animated musical film has its highs and lows, many of them very funny and all of them original, not seen in any of the tv specials although a lot of the familiar sitegags are back. The score is pretty decent, although the clever spelling bee song isn't really melodic. It takes a good half hour or more for them to get to the gist of the plot, the challenge of the spelling bee, and it's surprising to see Lucy actually cheering when he wins the school title. There are definite moments of cleverness, a few insipid oh, and the film does get to be a little bit over long. The psychedelic elements of the 70's may seem weird to children of a decade fifty years later, and Schroeder's nightmare is just beyond bizarre. There's a sense of nostalgia though, but Charlie Brown's desperation to achieve something is definitely a relatable goal after a subject of a song called "Failure Face". As a feature film, after all those annual holiday specials of the sixties, this doesn't measure up to those. Perhaps less in this case is more.