The Kidd here...
Just yesterday, I was talking about the practice of animated film's overbilling their voice casts in attempts to draw in fans of their stars to see a movie they might not ordinarily see. "Oh, this has Kevin Spacey in it...? Well, animated flicks aren't my thing, but if I can listen to him..."
I think it's a distraction to hear actors rather than characters in a film of this nature, and, while those distinct voices can sometimes work to a film's benefit - yeah, you can obviously tell Jack Black is Kung Fu Panda, but that character is built into that voice - you can't tell me you sat there during THE INCREDIBLES, able to pick Craig T. Nelson up right off the bat (Samuel L. Jackson, that's a different story).
Then we come to something like the new trailer for EPIC, which completely disregards any semblance of telling me what the film is about in order to starfuck for two minutes and change. See... I would have never known Steven Tyler was in this movie, and from the sound of it, he looks to actually blend into whoever he's playing, but they felt the need to call plenty of attention to it. Am I supposed to take a movie that features a character played by Pitbull seriously? I already never want to touch a Bud Light whenever his music strikes up on those commercials. Let's be clear... this isn't the same as watching Colin Farrell or Amanda Seyfried on-screen, so billing them as if they are is a bit ridiculous.
EPIC has a very weird vibe though, as it feels there are two different movies going on here - one is a serious adventure between good and evil between these strange forest creatures, and the other has a wise-cracking slug. Visually it's impressive, but this thing looks to be a bit all over the place. What do you think?
-Billy Donnelly
"The Infamous Billy The Kidd"
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