Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie Blu-ray Movie Review

No, you may not be excused until you've watched your vegetables.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 2, 2011

Wait a minute—aren’t kids supposed to hate vegetables? You’d think the creators of the popular VeggieTales series would have taken that into account and come up with IceCreamTales or CandyBarTales or CookieTales. But instead we don’t just get wholesome entertainment from VeggieTales, we also get wholesome leading characters, and for that the VeggieTales crowd deserves mega-kudos. The VeggieTales series has imparted solid core Christian values in a frequently funny and usually very entertaining way. There’s little overt moralizing, at least taken within the context of some screed-worthy children’s entertainment vehicles which seek to virtually bludgeon kids over the head with trite formulistic recountings of Bible stories. You may actually silently shriek in horror when thinking about VeggieTales, but you have to at least hand it to the series that it completely reinvents the Bible and tangentially related storylines in its own inimitable image, an image that includes talking tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes and even asparaguses (asparagii?). Unlike so many portentous religiously themed products which have come down the home entertainment line, VeggieTales resolutely refuses to take itself too seriously, despite harboring obviously deeply held beliefs which are imparted fairly painlessly along the way. In fact what is so bracing and entertaining about the franchise, especially in this first feature film iteration, is its homage to iconic silly troupes which have gone before, notably Monty Python’s Flying Circus, whose breathless wordplay and outré sight gags are front and center throughout a lot of Jonah.

VeggieTales are the brainchild of Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, who pretty much do everything from produce to write to voice most of the characters to, I would assume, sweep the floors and do the dishes at the corporate offices. The two, who deliver two amusing commentaries, one as themselves, and one as two of their VeggieTales characters, on this Blu-ray, seem to be blessed with preternaturally sunny dispositions, but they don’t fall into the treacly, preachy saccharine happiness that has sunk previous attempts in this same general genre. In fact the two are self-confessed Monty Python fans, and seem to love a wealth of iconic comedy material, at least based on their work in their series and their films. Jonah is full of a lot of schtick, but as with any good comedy, most of the humor derives from the characters and their foibles.

Jonah features a framing device, which is returned to sporadically throughout the film, where Bob the Tomato is driving a bunch of the Veggie kids to hear Twippo (think of a VeggieTales version of Justin Bieber) in concert. Helping to navigate is Archibald Asparagus, who manages to get the group hopelessly lost. Adding insult to injury, a series of misadventures leads to the group’s van almost crashing into a river. They end up at a nearby seafood restaurant, where Bob is full of recriminations for Archibald, and the kids are each others’ throats for a variety of ridiculous reasons. Enter The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, a sort of play on Monty Python’s The Knights Who Say ‘Ni’. The Pirates hope to help the group through its little crisis by offering up a story which they themselves claim to have been a part of, that of Jonah.

We then move into a rather fanciful retelling of the Jonah story, with Dad Asparagus taking the part of the prophet. Aside from the obviously silly vegetable characters, we get a fairly—fairly—straightforward account of Jonah’s desire to run far, far away from the commanding voice of the Divine, who urges Jonah to go to Nineveh to “wake up” the people from their sinful ways. Jonah of course wants to have nothing to do with this evangelical repenting tour, and tries to escape to Tarshish, which puts him on a boat with the aforementioned Pirates. While there, he also meets a funny character who becomes his sort of sidekick, the caterpillar Khalil.

Things get noticeably sillier in the final act of the film, after Jonah’s unfortunate tour inside of the whale, once he actually gets to Nineveh. In a literally slaphappy bit taken verbatim from Monty Python, the Ninevehns are people who hit each other with large fish. They in fact worship fish. Jonah and his cohorts are taken prisoner for a completely ridiculous reason involving a popular cheese snack. But Jonah is finally able to deliver the message from beyond, and the natives of Nineveh do in fact see the error of their ways and promise to reform their behavior.

The end? Not exactly, and this where Jonah really does some fine and perhaps unexpected work. Jonah leaves Nineveh and sits high on a hill with Khalil, fully expecting a rain of fire and brimstone to demolish the heathen town, despite their recent reformation. Jonah can’t quite accept that God would actually forgive these horrible people, and it takes a while for Jonah to realize that second chances are for everyone, even those who perhaps least deserve it.

This is a brisk and congenial film which is fleet enough to avoid several pratfalls along the way. While its message is clear and at times surprisingly profound, it’s delivered without dogmatism and with a great deal of humor, letting it go down a little easier than it might have otherwise. Filled with bright, colorful characters and a charming music score, Jonah is the sort of entertainment I wish they had had at Sunday School when I was growing up.

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Big Ideas Productions hardly works with a Pixar-sized budget, so if you can accept the fact that the CGI rendering here isn't bristling with fine detail, this AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 looks sharp and clean with only a couple of very, very minor passing issues keeping it from a perfect score. Textures are almost all uniformly smooth here, making a lot of Jonah look like animated geometrical solids with eyes thrown on them. Only things like Jonah's camel get any attention to things like fur, and even then this is certainly not at the level of Monsters, Inc. or similarly hirsute Pixar productions. But lines are clean and sharp here and the colors are especially delightful, reproduced on this Blu-ray with really appealing saturation and an impressive palette. There is one dream sequence where Jonah is surrounded by an effulgent white light and that gets to near blooming levels at times, but otherwise this transfer is clear and bright and should delight children of all ages.

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jonah's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix has a lot of really fun elements, beginning with the title sequence when we can hear bubbles rising to the surface all around us. The film is filled with a variety of fun sound effects which keep the proceedings fairly immersive almost all of the time. Dialogue is well placed, and sound effects are almost always uniformly directional. The best effects are probably in the whale sequence. This doesn't really have an overwhelmingly thunderous amount of LFE, perhaps to keep it from being too scary for younger tots, but when that whale first rises out the water, there's a pretty appreciable rumble gurgling up from the subwoofer. The charming song score is also very well reproduced, with excellent fidelity and sparkling dynamic range.

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature Commentaries offer three different takes on behind the scenes information. The first, by creators, co-producers and writers Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki is funny and informative, while the second, featuring producer Ameake Owen and Director of Animation Marc Vulcano, goes more into the nuts and bolts of the actual filmmaking process. The third, which features Vischer and Nawrocki again, this time in character as Larry the Cucumber and Mr. Lunt, verges on the surreal and should be enjoyed by those who love Monty Python, as these two obviously do.
• Behind the Scenes is split into four brief featurettes. The Studio Process (SD; 7:01) takes us from story creation to storyboards, animation, voice work and final production. Big Idea Tour with Phil Vischer (SD; 12:01) is a whirlwind trip through the Big Idea offices with the Big Kahuna. Jonah and the Bible (SD; 5:30) talks about how the actual Bible story was adapted to the VeggieTales world. Khalil Auditions (SD; 3:02) presents the same sequence (with storyboards only) over several times with different vocal approaches for the comical character.
• Music Video: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything by Superchick (SD; 2:47)
• Bonus Material is, like the Behind the Scenes offerings, split into subcategories. Outtakes (English and Spanish) (SD; 5:42) follows Pixar's lead by creating faux fumbles and gags supposedly caught "on set." Progression Reels (SD; 1:41) offers a split screen look at three sequences in various stages of completion. Digital Dailies (SD; 15:28) is a lot like the Outtakes, featuring a running commentary by several of the vegetable characters. Extra Countertop Scenes (SD; 6:20) is a collection of promos for the film featuring Bob and Larry.
• Trailers and Previews

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Yes, it's patently silly, but what better way to get your kids to get a little—ahem—taste of the Good Book? VeggieTales saves itself from even cynics (like me) by being flat out ridiculous a lot of the time, and that off the wall humor makes this a painfree enterprise. Buoyed by good voice work, a colorful visual presentation, and fun music, even parents may want to stick around and see what happens to Jonah. And think of it this way: if you can't get your kids to eat vegetables, at least you can get them to watch them with this delightful little film. Highly recommended.