Adventure of Manu

source: Adventure of Manu

source: Jungle Shuffle

Jungle shuffle is a movie about a young coati boy named Manu being exhiled from his home due to destroying a statue. Not only must he leave his home, but also his lover. The movie then moves forward as young Manu and his girlfriend grow-up and she is captured by hunters. Of course Manu then attempts to save her, but fails. Believe it or not, this is the point the movie gets silly. I can tolerate animals falling in love and being overly cartoony with crappy lines, but when it turns out that the hunters are actually gathering animals to steal there DNA to create a superchicken, it's gone too far. I feel like the animals being stolen to be sold to the exotic pet trade instead would not only make more sense, but would also reinforce the message this movie attempted to convey about humans being destructive. So of course like any movie about cutesy animals and the forest, this movie attempts to show how humans destroy the rainforest. As a conservationist, I usually have more tolerance over this plot than most people because no matter how bad the execution, the overall message is one I agree with. However, it's not good to show humans destroying the rainforest if they are doing it for no reason (which this movie does). Why are they cutting down trees in this film if all they need are a few critters? I just genuinely don't understand. We see a guy with a van full of timber and goods driving to the lab where the animals are heading, but why does a scientist need timber? I think the real answer is that they just need another vehicle in the movie to transport the protagonists towards the captured animals, which is pretty lazy writing if I'm honest. Another thing that annoyed me about this movie is the character designs. I don't particularly mind the bright colours and bad animation, since foreign studios don't have access to the funding and equipment of the bigger studios in the US. However, I at least want the animals to look like what they are based off. The Coati Mundis looked nothing like real ones because despite having a somewhat correct pattern, they have really squished snouts. The movie ends with Manu and his animals friends he met along his travels freeing the captive animals. There are some weird occurrences such as some El-chupacabra-like monster and a monkey addicted to sugar, but I can't really be bothered to explain that. Despite only surpassing the classification of a feature-length film, it feels the same length as a lord of the rings movie because it's so bloody boring. Don't watch this film, even if like me you like to seek rubbish animated movies out for a laugh because this one is too crap to be genuinely entertaining and just slightly too passable to be hilariously bad.

Why do they keep letting Rob Schneider do offensive ethnic stereotypes? Here he plays a monkey who's supposed to be Asian but sounds like a bad impression of Christopher Walken doing a bad Vietnamese accent. Anyway, as you've probably gathered, the CGI is extremely ugly and the animation is stiff. Far be it from me to judge a book by its cover, but when the main feature of the film is visual action scenes, that's a big problem. So they should have made up for it in plot, character building, etc, etc. But they didn't. The plot is just a bag of cliches. Save a princess, humans are destroying the rainforest, awkward guy becomes hero. Whatever. It's just a rehash of a bunch of cliche plots that have been done to death. Except this one has a dragon. And the dialogue is extremely cringeworthy. Nope, not even Rob Schneider could save this one. It's not deadly dull and, were it an amateur production, it would be considered technically passable, but what a waste of time for everyone involved - both on the creating and the viewing side. People shouldn't waste money on this type of thing. Honourable Mentions: Dragones: Destino del Fuego (2006). Marginally worse and uglier Peruvian attempt at CGI. Come on. Just use sock puppets and hire a decent writer if you can't afford to do proper CGI. Trust me, it'll be better.

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Jungle Shuffle