Charming 'Peanuts' cracks jokes, not diversity
The 3-D, computer-animated "The Peanuts Movie" plays like a condensed "greatest hits" compilation of every familiar bit immortalized by Charles M. Schulz in his beloved comic strip, and on TV specials, in the 1967 musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and the 1969 movie "A Boy Named Charlie Brown."
We see Charlie Brown (Noah Schnapp) fight the dastardly kite-eating tree!
We witness Lucy (Hadley Belle Miller) struggling to win the affections of the Beethoven-loving pianist Schroeder (Noah Johnston) - when she's not earning a nickel for sidewalk psychiatric evaluations.
We watch the arrival of the Red-Haired Girl (Francesca Capaldi) putting Charlie Brown in a tizzy.
We thrill to Snoopy's imaginary battles with the Red Baron, who here kidnaps a female World War I fighter pilot named Fifi (Kristin Chenoweth).
(For a while, I thought the screenwriters forgot the bit where Lucy promises to hold the football for Charlie Brown to kick. Whew! It's in the closing credits!)
Yes, except for the 3-D computer animation, not much has been added to "The Peanuts Movie,"
It's almost as if the whole Peanuts universe has been encased in Carbonite, shipped to 2015, then unfrozen like Han Solo, ready for movie duty.
This decision to play it commercially safe - to keep Peanuts in a pre-computer, pre-cellphone, 1960s TV world - will no doubt win over nostalgic baby boomers who used to rush to the newspaper comics pages so they could read the next installment in Charlie Brown's optimistic quest to stop being such a loser.
Plus, the old-fashioned values of compassion, sacrifice, honesty and loyalty espoused by this movie will be appreciated by a new generation of kids.
But there's a downside to preserving a 1960s TV approach to "The Peanuts Movie" in 2015.
All the main characters are as white as the snow that Mother Nature dumps on their quaint, Rockwellesque community during the winter scenes.
True, the cast includes an African-American kid named Franklin (voiced by Marlieik "Mar Mar" Walker), but he's mostly relegated to the background in crowd scenes. Not a major player.
There are many things to love about the terrifically entertaining "The Peanuts Movie."
Writers Craig Schulz (Charles' son), Bryan Schulz (Charles' grandson) and Cornelius Uliano craft a proper screenplay capturing the amusing, non-jokey appeal of the what-you-see-is-what-you-get "Peanuts" gang.
Most of the voices are supplied by kid actors, not adults. They sound ultra-real, as they should. Schnapp, who reads Charlie Brown's lines with effervescent charm, also plays Tom Hanks' son in Steven Spielberg's excellent drama "Bridge of Spies."
The artists at Blue Sky - the group that gave us the popular "Ice Age" comedies - do a remarkable job of simulating the simple drawings of the comic strip and its spinoff TV specials, even with the 3-D computer-animation overkill.
Still, I'm not sure Charles Schulz would have wanted this movie to be stuck in the 1960s.
Long after he introduced Charlie Brown in 1950, Schulz remained open to new characters as the times changed.
That's why we got tomboy Peppermint Patty in 1966, followed by Franklin in 1968, the year of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.
Couldn't "The Peanuts Movie" have been a little more diverse and a little more relevant to 2015?
Wouldn't it be nice if today's kids went to "The Peanuts Movie," and not only saw Charlie Brown, they saw themselves?
“Peanuts: The Movie”
★ ★ ★
Starring: Noah Schnapp, Hadley Belle Miller, Alexander Garfin, Noah Johnston, Bill Melendez
Directed by: Steve Martino
Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated G. 92 minutes