Customer Reviews

The Snurks

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The Snurks is a really interesting movie with a concept that never really seems to have been done before. The plot revolves around animated children's show characters named Boo, Zino and a group of semi-villainous "Snurks". They get brought to the real world by a mad scientist trying to steal the ultimate power of the universe, something called Dalamite, which happens to be a part of the television world these characters come from. If you think the premise is weird, it gets weirder.

These one foot tall creatures must now battle a strange, unknown world, reclaim "the Dalamite" and return home to their beloved world, called "Gaia". I won't spoil the ending or any of the various subplots, but I will say that its an involved and interesting storyline, and many of the characters actually evolve, grow and change by the end, a rare thing in movies these days.

The visuals are stunning, and the attention given to details is meticulous. Many of the backgrounds contain visual reactions or subtle animation that is too often missing in animated movies today, moths buzzing around a street lamp, for instance.

On the whole, however, the movie falls short in a few places. None of the characters really resonated with me and as such came away as being forgettable. There were very few moments in the film that I would call memorable, and the climax of the movie takes far too long. Still, I would recommend this movie highly as a fun night of viewing.

This English movie has realistic and beautiful computer animation. Despite the apparent similarity to Shrek, The Snurks has much more kid appeal than adult appeal. I watched this with my friend's eight year-old. He laughed in all the right places, and kept saying how Gaya was so beautiful, he wished he could live there.

The story is very original. A TV series called "Gaya" features an heroic duo named Boo and Zino. Boo is the shy, bespectacled genius, while Zino is the handsome, daring, dumb jock who is a big hero. A professor in the real world learns how to use a television set as a transporter device to transport whatever - or whomever - is on the screen. Our little friends soon find themselves trapped in 21st century Earth, where they meet their creator and try to stop the mad professor from destroying Gaya.

Lots of action and humor, lovely scenery and effects. Mild language like "hell" and "damn" a couple of times.

I like to consider myself free of animation film snobbery. Sure I enjoy the latest Pixar or DreamWorks big budget blockbuster as much as the next guy but a little research reveals that there is a whole truckload of computer generated feature films on DVD that slip into the market without hype, hoopla or fanfare.

The Snurks is precisely a strong example of the latter. The film began life in Germany by Ambient Entertainment under the name Back to Gaya in 2004. It celebrates the honor of being the first German film to be completely computer generated! It was then brought to the United States by First Look Pictures in 2005 under the new, catchier name The Snurks. The entire film was dubbed in English with a vocal cast including Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame and Emily Watson to mention a few of the talents recruited for the task.

The story goes something like this: The beautiful world of Gaya is home to a community of big-eared humanoid creatures who are much smaller than humans despite an uncanny resemblance. The exploits of these tiny folks just so happens to be a popular children's fictional television show- particularly a pair of heroes named Boo and Zino and a group of villainous "Snurks".

The whole lot of them gets transported into our world by a mad scientist trying to steal the ultimate power, a small orb that happens to be a part of the fictitious world these characters inhabit.

Sound strange so far? Oh it is! I mean not to bog this critique down on technicalities but does anyone else find the idea of a mad scientist, angry because his television show got cancelled, who develops a machine that can suck anything out of the TV and turn it into reality, a bit odd? I mean his intentions as the villain are about as muddled as it gets. First we are led to believe it's this orb he lusts after, then we find out he is disgruntled and vengeance seeking, then by the end it appears even he isn't sure what he's angry about. But that's only one part of the peculiarity at hand.

Contrary to common misconception, the visuals are quite stunning even today (and remember this was created in 2004). The creatures and their magical realm are very, very reminiscent of the Naughty Dog video game series Jack and Daxter (which was particularly popular on the Playstation 2 platform at the time). And though the concept of bringing these fantasy pawns into the real world is certainly novel, the delivery is so jumbled up that the majesty in the presentation is meaningless.

The story continually flirts with some great potential; I mean in fact in one sequence these little fictional characters meet their creator in our world and the feeling that a great revelation is on the horizon starts to build (like maybe there is no such thing as fiction, that what we believe to be figments of our imagination is in fact just contact from another reality).

But instead the heroes are told that their world is all made-up nonsense and that there they have no free will: all their thoughts, all their actions are simply the result of the human who created them's will. Huh? What kind of message is that?

One can only hope that the plot holes and inconsistencies are the result of inaccurate translation but it's questionable; a situation made worse by very inconsistent pacing. The film skips over critical details then slows to a grinding halt at some of the oddest moments. What this results in is a film that feels much longer than it's 88-minute runtime.

Oddly enough for a children's movie there are some pretty intense profanities within the bonus material (particularly the "thoughts from the characters section"). Parents, be advised.

In all, The Snurks is about one of the oddest animated features I've yet to encounter in my travels and, to my surprise, not at all for the reasons I expected. Visually this film is a stunner, even now, six years after the fact. The scoring is top notch as well (this would end up being composer Michael Kamen's last score; he died before he could complete it and his musicians were forced to fill out the unfinished sketches). The plot itself and the pacing are muddled but the younger set will definitely be able to overlook these nuances to enjoy the characters and the visuals. Which is fine so long as they don't venture into the special features!

I really, really liked this movie. On the websites I've been to, everyone keeps comparing to Shark Tale. Well, all I can say is that...

This rocks Shark Tale's SOCKS off!!

The story could use a little touching up. The characters were at best, stereotypical, at worst horribly annoying/disgusting.

But the visuals are really what make this movie worth watching. This was an amazing achievment; a work of 3D art. The animation is astounding--these characters, no doubt about it, have the illusion of life. Their faces are expressive, their clothing is astoundingly well-done, and as for the ears and hair--let's just say AMAZING and leave it at that, because I really don't have words to describe it.

I think that if you like animation, you should watch this movie. If you like movies, period, you should watch this movie, but just rent it; DON'T buy it.

All in all, I liked this movie. Yes, it had stereotypes, lots of them. But it did have a somewhat good plot line.

The most prominent thing is how weird it is. This is up on the list of weirdest movies I've ever seen, along with Pom Poko and The Dust Factory. Weird weird weird.

But worth watching.

Ok, there's no big deep meaning here. It's a safe, standard cartoon for tween-agers, or maybe kids just below that age. The stereotypes are all there: and over-protected and rebellious princess (or something like), muscular and handsome hero with supergeek sidekick, and a basically good boy who just fell in with the wrong crowd. Their quest is to recover a magical gem from the mad scientist (with lab coat) who stole it.

The animation is as good as any around. A few nice turns of story line save it from being boring as well as trite, but I'll let you find them for yourself. It's good entertainment for kids, but an adult should have a good book to read while this is on.

//wiredweird

I thought this would be a clever shrek-ish movie, but the kids were bored after about 10 minutes. I'm sad I wasted my money on this one. Not one interesting character and the same action that's in all cartoons these days

for being a straight to dvd movie it was pretty good. this movie is great for little kids. and kids at heart

My 2 daughter really enjoy watching this, they are 3 and 5 years old. Not the best graphics in the world, but certainly not the worse, great value for money.

The first time I watched it, I was disappointed. Second time, a little better. Now it's in my animation collection.