The One And Only Ivan Film Review

 

Guys and girls it seems that Disney is the only company outside of Netflix that is actually willing to release new films right now. Which I do believe is going to be coming to end soon hopefully but until then we just have to make do with films being released on Disney+ I say this because even tho it's great that Disney is releasing new films nothing beats watching a film on the big screen and here is my review of a film that was due to get a big screen release "The One And Only Ivan" enjoy guys and girls and everything inbetween.

The plot of the movie is Ivan a silverback gorilla who is the main star at a circus has to look after a baby elephant and so begins an journey that will change the gorilla's life forever. I will admit that the story is perhaps the weakest part of the film since it's so thin that it might as well as not even be present but when there is some sort of a story it is generally nice and heartwarming it's just a shame that the story isn't really that good.

Starring in the film in live action roles are Bryan Cranston as Mack , Ramón Rodríguez as George , Ariana Greenblatt as Julia and Owain Arthur as Castello. Also starring in the film and voicing the film's animals are Sam Rockwell as Ivan , Angelina Jolie as Stella , Brooklyn Prince as Ruby , Danny DeVito as Bob , Dame Helen Mirren as Snickers , Chaka Khan as Henrietta , Ron Funches as Murphy , Phillipa Soo as Thelma and Mike White as Frankie.

In terms of the live action actors they do a really solid job in this movie I think that it goes without saying but Bryan Cranston once again kills it in this movie the guy can simply do no wrong at this point hell he could star in a sequel to Norm Of The North and still turn in a great performance. The voice actors again do a good job I honestly cannot think of a single bad performer amongst the entire cast both live action or voice actors because they are all that good.

This film is a live action / CGI hybrid and as such the CGI effects in the film were provided by Moving Picture Company and Method Studios. In my opinion the CGI effects in this film are alot better then they really had any right to be and it's such a shame that these effects are now stuck in a movie that didn't get a big screen release because I really do believe that a movie with effects this good should be seen up on the big screen.

Like I said this one of many Disney movies that was going to be released on the big screen but due to the fact there are very little cinema's opening it along with Mulan and a few others are now being released on Disney+. I honestly feel that this is a good move since it does mean that these films are indeed being released in some form but the film fan inside of me can't help but wonder what this film would have been like to experience on the big screen.

Now i'm trying not to give anything away in terms of plot but I will say there was at least one scene in this film that caught me of guard with how sad it was. Those who have seen the movie will know what scene i'm talking about but damn I wasn't expecting to be shedding a tear during this movie and the scene in question is so well done I wouldn't say it's on par with the Baby Mine scene from the original Dumbo but it's damn freaking close.

Speaking of sad things about this movie both this film and Chaos Walking are the last films that producer Allison Shearmur worked on before her death in 2018 as such both film's are going to be dedicated to her. This honestly a rather touching thing because looking at her filmography on Wikipedia she worked on alot of solid films like the entire Hunger Games film trilogy and the 2017 Power Rangers reboot film.

Now while doing some research for this review I found out that this film is based on the 2013 book also called The One And Only Ivan by K. A. Applegate and while watching the film it turns out that both the book and thus film is inspired by a true life story about a gorilla called Ivan. Of course things that actually happened in real life are most likely going to be changed when being turned into both book and then of course this film but from what I can gather just from the images used in the film alot of the things that happened in the book also happened in real life.

Now this film is listed as a fantasy which I disagree with since to me it's more of a drama then a straight up fantasy. In fact the only thing that makes this film a fantasy in my eyes is the fact that the animals talk which to me isn't enough to call a film a fantasy but there is alot of heart and drama in the film and so to me the film feels more like a drama that just so happens to have talking animals in it then it does a fantasy.

This film has a running time of an hour and thirty three minuets which I feel is the perfect running time for this film. Since there's a thin story as it is and so to drag that out would only make it more glaring issue and so giving it this running time means that the film can have a chance to entertain you and yet not feel that it's dragging on to long which is an issue that alot of films sadly have at least in my opinion they do anyways.

Overall this was a shockingly good film and I say that because alot of the Disney+ films i've seen haven't been that good. Yes this film does have it's share of issues which i've covered in this review but to me those issues didn't stop me from not only enjoying the film but also getting sucked into the film and it's story and given that there's a sequel to the book out i'm hoping that Disney turns that book into a sequel as well and so this film gets a solid 8 out of 10 from me.

All images used in this review were gathered from either the official Disney fandom wiki page , Google Images and the official X-Men films fandom wiki page. Please note that the reason why your seeing a poster for The New Mutants is because that is the next film currently that Disney is releasing next and yes I will be reviewing that film as soon as I can as for the images in this review tho I really can't recommend anywhere other then Google Images since they had more images up then the Disney fandom wiki page did.