A Town Called PanicRelease Date: December 16, 2009
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
Director: Stephane Aubier, Vincent Pata
Screenwriter: Stephane Aubier, Vincent Pata
Starring: Not Available
Genre: Action, Adventure, Animation
MPAA Rating: Not Available
Official Website: ATownCalledPanic.com
Review: Not Available
DVD Review: Not Available
DVD: Not Available
Movie Poster: Not Available
Production Stills: Not Available
Imagine, if you will, that Robot Chicken and Wallace & Gromit had a child. Then imagine you could watch that child in fast motion, and that child never stopped screaming. In French. If you can picture that, then I've just saved you ninety minutes of going to see A Town Called Panic.
Though the stop-motion animated movie starts off pleasantly enough, with a mailman riding through pastoral, animated hills, as soon as he reaches the town of Panic, things get amped up to 11. A Horse, a Cowboy, and an Indian, all action figures with sub-Robot Chicken animated mouths run around yelling at each other at super speed, going from one adventure to another. Although they're all ostensibly based around a disaster at Horse's birthday, where Cowboy and Indian accidentally ordering one billion bricks to build a barbecue for him, and end up destroying the town, that's far too stream lined for what the film-makers have on their minds. There's also underwater thieves stealing the walls to Horse's house; an aborted romance with another, sexy horse; a giant robotic penguin who's only function is to throw snowballs; a tractor with a mind of its own; and much, much more.
Working under the premise that children have the attention span of gnats (which, I guess, is hard to refute), the film flits from subject to subject without any rhyme or reason, sense of character growth, or real need to tie everything together, as the protracted and meandering ending proves.
It isn't all bad, though. With so much flailing around, the movie has to eventually hit a target. And though the novelty fades with time, a horse with a gruff French voice taking showers, or slow dancing with another horse is pretty hilarious. And throughout, though the French shouting is rather unpleasant on a whole, the movie does have a sweet, romantic heart to it, and, I guess, teaches responsibility or something. And some of the images, like Horse, Indian, and Cowboy trudging through an arctic landscape do approach a sort of sparse beauty.
On a whole, though, if you want better inventions and more exciting innovation, check out any Wallace & Gromit movie or short. If you want more crass parody, and more creative use of action figures, check out Robot Chicken. And if you don't want to feel like you spent all morning being yelled at in the Paris subway, don't go see A Town Called Panic.
