Generally speaking, a good story should be able to tell itself without a narrator having to provide consistent descriptions on what is going on onscreen. Apparently, this story cannot do this.
Further, the narrator in question seems inspired by Thomas Hobbes idea that humans are inherently bad and will do anything to advance their own interests because they are cruel, selfish and self-interested all of the time. The result is that not only is the film's narrator intrusive and monotonous, but he's markedly off-putting, even suggesting at one point that eating worms and being canabalistic are more nutritious than the fares provided by modern agriculture and animal production.
I'm giving a two star review rather than a one star and even considered giving it three, because the kids do a good enough job with the direction they were obviously given, but in the end watching a group of preteens act out a world of Machiavellian nihilism with the grating monotone of an irritating narrator who can't keep his mouth shut talking over all of it because he feels the story cannot tell itself is simply unplesant.
Further, the narrator in question seems inspired by Thomas Hobbes idea that humans are inherently bad and will do anything to advance their own interests because they are cruel, selfish and self-interested all of the time. The result is that not only is the film's narrator intrusive and monotonous, but he's markedly off-putting, even suggesting at one point that eating worms and being canabalistic are more nutritious than the fares provided by modern agriculture and animal production.
I'm giving a two star review rather than a one star and even considered giving it three, because the kids do a good enough job with the direction they were obviously given, but in the end watching a group of preteens act out a world of Machiavellian nihilism with the grating monotone of an irritating narrator who can't keep his mouth shut talking over all of it because he feels the story cannot tell itself is simply unplesant.