Not the worst animated movie I've ever seen, but it does come close and is among the worst seen recently. As a huge fan of animation, even if the execution is wanting in several areas, this viewer does try to not be too harsh in her judgement as long as it's clear that effort was made. And that is the problem with The Prodigy, not only does it look cheap but it insults the intelligence and really does feel like little effort was put into it.
The Prodigy is very poorly animated, not quite as bad as the Video Brinquedo and Spark Plug Entertainment output as far as computer animation goes. But does that excuse the flat colours, the sloppy editing in the action, the very, very sparse backgrounds (which are one-dimensional and restricted to about three or four objects a background on occasions) and the very ugly and sometimes creepy designs with the movements of a video game dated from twenty years ago? No it doesn't. The problem with the soundtrack is that not only is an overly loud and plodding soundtrack that has very little memorable about it but the style it is composed it completely jars with the setting.
In terms of writing, the dialogue and jokes are enough to make one cringe, so dumbed down, awkward and forced that the probability of getting sore eyes from rolling your eyes so much is a certainty. The story really struggles to sustain the running time and pads it with overlong scenes and scenes that are little more than unnecessary filler. It is also far too simplistic and very predictable. The action is poorly animated to start with, and the unexciting choreography, weird sound efforts and the lack of momentum hurt it further. The characters fail to engage, with a blandly written female lead, underwritten and confusedly written villains and a truly obnoxious panda. The voice acting is very stiff, most of the characters speak in monotone while on the other end of the spectrum the panda speaks in a higher-pitched Italian-sounding accent that sounds out of place with the rest of the voice actors.
All in all, could have been Kung-Fu-Tastic, but ended up being more like Kung-Fu-Rubbish. 1/10 Bethany Cox
The Prodigy is very poorly animated, not quite as bad as the Video Brinquedo and Spark Plug Entertainment output as far as computer animation goes. But does that excuse the flat colours, the sloppy editing in the action, the very, very sparse backgrounds (which are one-dimensional and restricted to about three or four objects a background on occasions) and the very ugly and sometimes creepy designs with the movements of a video game dated from twenty years ago? No it doesn't. The problem with the soundtrack is that not only is an overly loud and plodding soundtrack that has very little memorable about it but the style it is composed it completely jars with the setting.
In terms of writing, the dialogue and jokes are enough to make one cringe, so dumbed down, awkward and forced that the probability of getting sore eyes from rolling your eyes so much is a certainty. The story really struggles to sustain the running time and pads it with overlong scenes and scenes that are little more than unnecessary filler. It is also far too simplistic and very predictable. The action is poorly animated to start with, and the unexciting choreography, weird sound efforts and the lack of momentum hurt it further. The characters fail to engage, with a blandly written female lead, underwritten and confusedly written villains and a truly obnoxious panda. The voice acting is very stiff, most of the characters speak in monotone while on the other end of the spectrum the panda speaks in a higher-pitched Italian-sounding accent that sounds out of place with the rest of the voice actors.
All in all, could have been Kung-Fu-Tastic, but ended up being more like Kung-Fu-Rubbish. 1/10 Bethany Cox