Once upon a time, you could watch a family movie and be well and truly uplifted by the whole experience. These days, however, animated family features come pre-loaded with a minefield of emotional trappings which produce tears of laughter in children and just plain tears in adults. And “Wonder Park” looks like another guilty culprit.
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What is it about today’s climate that inspires Pixar, Dreamworks and now Paramount Animation to delight the younger audience while simultaneously sentimentally destroying the old? We’ve witnessed masterful storytelling in the first 5 minutes of “Up,” which builds up and immediately tears down a love story more convincing than the entire ‘Fifty Shades’ saga. And “Toy Story 3” went out of its way to remind us that we gave up on the most important friends that we never knew we had.
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Similarly, “Wonder Park,” tells the story of a fantastic hidden amusement park (think Disney World after three months of carbs-loading), which was spawned from the vivid imagination of a young girl named June with the help of her mother. Your usual cast of loveable, talking animals get to work on restoring the park, but before long, the arrival of mischievous ChimpanZombies arrive and begin to run riot.
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“Wonder Park” not only looks like a wild ride, but an entire emotional journey too, with June’s lost family and dissolving youth not far from the forefront throughout. Whatever happened to just having some good, clean, fun?
To be fair though, with a voice cast featuring Mila Kunis, Jennifer Garner, Ken Jeong, and Kenan Thompson, there’s no doubt plenty of fun to be had too. Add to that the screenplay-writing duo of Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Mission impossible: Ghost Protocol” fame and we’re looking forward to the park opening. Just not the additional emotional trauma.
Before “Wonder Park” gets its release on March 15, 2019, have a look at the trailer. But be prepared; you might get something stuck in your eye.
