My bf and I had watched this film on Netflix and were left severely disappointed. While the film's overall aesthetic was beautiful with very cute and stylized character designs for the various animals and people, the animation and overarching plot was less admirable.
*Spoilers Ahead*
The "romances" aren't fleshed out and are completely tropey and cliché. The main snakes, Ajarand Eve(a?) fall in love after speaking for two minutes, with the Ajar willing to cross the desert to save her after getting taken by a snake charmer; they barely know each others names. Ajar puts his best friend, Pitt The scorpion and Eve's brother Gary in harm's way constantly because he became infatuated, then gets mad at them for not wanting to put their lives in danger for her. Thats dumb, it would have made more sense to have Gary, her brother, want to save her and ask for Ajar's help while focusing on their friendship as two opposing snakes develop instead of a lazy love story, or have Ajar and Eve set out to save Gary and actually developed their romance. It's all just poorly executed.
Another pointless plot device is that the snakes are divided by "race" ie the green snakes are considered superior and beautiful while the venomous snakes are referred to as "dustys". It also doesn't help that the dusty all have traditionally northern African names while the green snakes have traditionally English names. It's also just a plot point that doesn't actually end up mattering less than a quarter through and it just trivializes actual racial diaspora faced by groups today. Like if the point was to show that you shouldn't judge based on skin color, then there should have been more moments of the green snakes realizing that their way of thinking is wrong and trying to dismantle that stigma among the other green snakes, but they never acknowledge how bigoted they are, they don't even really apologize for the things they say to Ajar, so it becomes a moot point.
There's references to drug addiction; while one snake is addicted to snorting pollen (referencing cocaine addiction), he acts as someone who has smoked weed, which doesn't make sense, and he even goes into withdrawal at one point, because addiction is funny And appropriate for children's films apparently.
The characters aren't fleshed out at all and rely on running gags to keep them relevant; ie Ajar hasn't molted his skin before and is a dusty, Pitt keeps stinging himself which makes him sleep, Gary is addicted to pollen and has a "surfer dude" dialect, Eve is pretty (for a snake I guess?) And that's all you get from them in terms of character development.
Another issue with the plot is that there are random references to popular culture sprinkled throughout that aren't done in a witty way, so it breaks the immersion in a jolting way. Why would a bunch of snakes be aware of celebrities or things going on in the west? A good reference in a movie is acknowledgable not confusing.
The plot just has a lot of things going on at once with nothing actually substantial happening, so you just feel like you've wasted an hour and twenty minutes watching nothing happen.
As for the animation, it was okay, but the snake dance battle was just dumb and cringey. They were supposed to be break dancing but they don't have arms or legs so its hard to tell what they're doing and it just looks silly.
I still love the look and character designs of the movie though, it's the only thing that kept me interested, but I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone.
*Spoilers Ahead*
The "romances" aren't fleshed out and are completely tropey and cliché. The main snakes, Ajarand Eve(a?) fall in love after speaking for two minutes, with the Ajar willing to cross the desert to save her after getting taken by a snake charmer; they barely know each others names. Ajar puts his best friend, Pitt The scorpion and Eve's brother Gary in harm's way constantly because he became infatuated, then gets mad at them for not wanting to put their lives in danger for her. Thats dumb, it would have made more sense to have Gary, her brother, want to save her and ask for Ajar's help while focusing on their friendship as two opposing snakes develop instead of a lazy love story, or have Ajar and Eve set out to save Gary and actually developed their romance. It's all just poorly executed.
Another pointless plot device is that the snakes are divided by "race" ie the green snakes are considered superior and beautiful while the venomous snakes are referred to as "dustys". It also doesn't help that the dusty all have traditionally northern African names while the green snakes have traditionally English names. It's also just a plot point that doesn't actually end up mattering less than a quarter through and it just trivializes actual racial diaspora faced by groups today. Like if the point was to show that you shouldn't judge based on skin color, then there should have been more moments of the green snakes realizing that their way of thinking is wrong and trying to dismantle that stigma among the other green snakes, but they never acknowledge how bigoted they are, they don't even really apologize for the things they say to Ajar, so it becomes a moot point.
There's references to drug addiction; while one snake is addicted to snorting pollen (referencing cocaine addiction), he acts as someone who has smoked weed, which doesn't make sense, and he even goes into withdrawal at one point, because addiction is funny And appropriate for children's films apparently.
The characters aren't fleshed out at all and rely on running gags to keep them relevant; ie Ajar hasn't molted his skin before and is a dusty, Pitt keeps stinging himself which makes him sleep, Gary is addicted to pollen and has a "surfer dude" dialect, Eve is pretty (for a snake I guess?) And that's all you get from them in terms of character development.
Another issue with the plot is that there are random references to popular culture sprinkled throughout that aren't done in a witty way, so it breaks the immersion in a jolting way. Why would a bunch of snakes be aware of celebrities or things going on in the west? A good reference in a movie is acknowledgable not confusing.
The plot just has a lot of things going on at once with nothing actually substantial happening, so you just feel like you've wasted an hour and twenty minutes watching nothing happen.
As for the animation, it was okay, but the snake dance battle was just dumb and cringey. They were supposed to be break dancing but they don't have arms or legs so its hard to tell what they're doing and it just looks silly.
I still love the look and character designs of the movie though, it's the only thing that kept me interested, but I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone.