Spirit of the Forest Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Spirit of the Forest Blu-ray Movie Review

Filled with whimsical character design and an appealing environmentally themed storyline, this Spanish feature should delight younger kids especially.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 9, 2010

It’s interesting to contrast different nations’ animation styles. While those of us in the United States probably tend to ignore our country’s actual diversity in animation, defaulting to the “Disneyfication” of the entire genre, other countries are similarly varied in their approach, yet many show extremely distinct differences from typical American plot devices and animation styles. In Japan we have everything from the gentle, and often nonlinear, work of Studio Ghibli, to the dystopian action adventure animés of directors like Katsuhiro Ôtomo. Spain is probably not yet a major player on the world stage of animated features, though their recent effort Planet 51 managed to rake in several tens of millions of dollars at the box office despite largely negative to lukewarm reviews. That same box office luster never rubbed off on 2008’s Spirit of the Forest, a decidedly low key, but often visually impressive, effort that is so un-American in its approach that stateside audiences may not know exactly what to make of it. If you’re a fan of the kinder, gentler Studio Ghibli efforts, you may well cotton to Spirit of the Forest, a film which is frankly disjointed and not typically plotted (at least in the “go get ‘em” U.S. way). If you insist on a traditional Disneyfied plot, with character beats you can virtually set a metronome to, Spirit of the Forest probably will leave you cold.

In the American version released on this new Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, the voice cast is quite stellar and may lead some consumers to believing they’re getting an all-American blockbuster cartoon. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sean Astin voices Furi, a little blue gopher who, with his buddies, is attempting to thwart the evil development plans of Mrs. D’Abondo (Anjelica Huston), a venal old lady who wants to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Furi is aided by an accident prone gopher named Cebolo (Avatar’s Giovanni Ribisi), a group of feral cats led by an egomaniac named Tigre, and, for gross-out comedic effect, a couple of flies who frankly could have come straight out of Disney-Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. This motley crew is an aggregate David working to defeat Mrs. D’Abondo’s Goliath, and of course there’s no real question about the outcome. What sets Spirit of the Forest apart from other good vs. bad animation efforts is its resolute refusal to stick with the typical plotting game plan, often veering off onto wild tangents which don’t always make a great deal of sense, but which offer a variety of strong character moments and some really whimsically sumptuous computer animation.

In fact it’s the look of Spirit of the Forest which may be it strongest calling card. This is a wonderfully rendered piece that has a strongly three dimensional feeling throughout, with computer generated versions of Disney’s patented multi-plane technique. But even the characters themselves seemingly pop out of the screen at times, with some weird and wacky designs, some of which are at least redolent of well known American source elements. The three gophers (you may not actually know what they are for a while until they’re identified by species) actually resemble characters out of Monsters, Inc., with loosely wafting fur floating around their bodies. The Spanish speaking mouse Piorno is a purple piece of mayhem that almost could have come from a south of the border Tex Avery cartoon. Mr. and Mrs. D’Abondo and their hapless servants are odd, asymmetrical types with caricatured features that make them hopelessly silly, probably helping to keep them from seeming too horribly threatening to the younger tykes for whom this film was obviously made. The oak trees who are threatened with extinction (including one voiced by the inimitable Ron Perlman) seem to have wandered in from the famous apple tree segment of The Wizard of Oz.

This particularly European flavor means that some of the humor may strike some parents as either lame or pushing the envelope a bit too far. The two stooge flies get swallowed by a cat in one of the many sidebars to the main storyline, and spend some time discussing the interior of the feline, including its accretion of excrement. Younger kids will probably think it’s funny-gross, but sensitive parents may wonder if they’ve opened the door on several days of film influenced potty humor. Overall, though, this film has a distinctly off kilter comedic voice, one which is fairly antithetical to the typical American “setup-punchline” scenario. The humor here is more of a gentle undercurrent to an obviously environmentally themed outlook.

Spirit of the Forest isn’t particularly subtle in its moralizing, but it’s so obviously skewed toward younger children, the screed aspect of the screenplay can probably be forgiven. This is a very distinctive looking feature that offers some wonderful character designs and a distinctly different “flavor” than American audiences are used to in their animated fare. If you’re someone who favors meat and potatoes all the time, Spirit of the Forest is probably not going to please your tastes. If, however, you have a slightly more adventurous palette, you may well be able to overlook some of the patent oddness of this film to find some spicy bits sprinkled into the stew.

Spirit of the Forest Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Spirit of the Forest often looks spectacular on Blu-ray, with an AVC encoded 1080p image in 1.78:1. This computer animated feature may remind some, at least passingly, of Pixar's work with Disney, but there's a decidedly odd and very whimsical approach to the character design which is distinctly its own. That said, the detail on this Blu-ray is wonderfully vivid. Furi and his friends sport brightly colored fur that, as mentioned above, may remind some of the gently wafting hair that covered our heroes in Monsters, Inc. Colors are intentionally somewhat muted a lot of the time, but they're splendidly saturated and cover a very wide palette. This is easily one of the more three dimensional images I've enjoyed in an animated feature recently, with excellent depth of field and beautiful attention paid to both the main characters as well as the background.

Spirit of the Forest Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The sometimes busy sound design of Spirit of the Forest is rendered quite impressively on the lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English track. It might have been interesting to compare this track with the original Spanish language version, but alas, that's not included here. The voicework is quite fun, especially Anjelica Huston who hams it up admirably, and effects fill the surrounds with a variety of forest sounds. Spirit of the Forest's sound design is a bit as disjointed as the storyline sometimes is, with foley effects and underscore tumbling over each other a time or two, but the TrueHD track separates these elements very well and allows the listener space to enter the soundfield. There are passing uses of LFE here as one unfortunate oak meets its fate, but for the most part it's the midrange frequencies that are exploited, and they sound robust and very full.

Spirit of the Forest Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are included on the Blu-ray. The combo pack included a DVD version of the film.

Spirit of the Forest Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some people just can't stand efforts like those that come out of Studio Ghibli. I personally find that odd, to say the least, but to those who may feel that way, I can pretty safely say Spirit of the Forest is not for you. If you're open to something that is distinctly different from American fare, this little film has one of the most appealing looks in recent memory. The storyline is probably too disjointed for its own good, but there are wonderful character bits scattered throughout the film. Kids up to age 6 or 7 should be enthralled. Recommended.