Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Wonder Park Blu-ray Movie Review

Not the place for smiles.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 18, 2019

Wonder Park never seemed destined for greatness. While the film isn't devoid of purpose or heart, it never gels or feels genuine. More, the film will likely be remembered more for filmmaker misconduct more so than missed opportunities. The film is essentially delivered without a director credit; Dylan Brown, a former Pixar employee, was tabbed to helm the movie but was dismissed late in development due to allegations of workplace harassment. The studio cited "inappropriate and unwanted behavior" as the reason for his dismissal. But the story doesn't end there. Amongst the impressive list of voice casting was to be Jeffrey Tambor, who was pegged to portray one of the film's primary animal characters, Boomer. He, too, was let go for allegations of inappropriate conduct months prior to Brown's dismissal (Tambor had previously left Amazon's Transparent after similar allegations arose). The end picture is a passable, but hardly praiseworthy, effort that explores one little girl's imagination that becomes an important part of an internalized coping mechanism when she learns her mother is gravely ill.

June (voiced by Brianna Denski) and her mother (voiced by Jennifer Garner) have opened their imaginations together and created the fantastical “Wonderland” amusement park, a collection of toys and makeshift rides and attractions that have brought them very close together. But when her mother falls gravely ill and must seek treatment far away, a depressed June puts away the Wonderland set and, in a moment of great sadness and frustration, burns the blueprints. Her father (voiced by Matthew Broderick) sends her to math camp for the summer, but she begins suffering from irrational fears that he will be incapable of caring for himself. When she and her friend Banky (voiced by Oev Michael Urbas) stage an opportunity to get her off the bus, she runs into the woods to head home but, en route, stumbles across her very own life size Wonderland. But it’s overgrown, rusted, abandoned, in a state of ruin and despair, not the sparkling, happy place she knows in her heart. Inside she finds the animals she has placed in charge of the park, including Boomer (voiced by Ken Hudson Campbell) and Peanut (voiced by Norbert Leo Butz) and discovers that her favorite characters are engaged in a brutal war to prevent the park from being pulled into an overhead void one piece at a time.

Wonder Park serves dual purposes. One is to offer a new colorful, zipping and zooming digitally animated family film, populated primarily by talking animals, to serve younger viewers with an endless appetite for such cinema experiences. The second is to tell a deeper story of the power, and importance, of imagination, particularly during a time of personal crisis. As for the former, the film does little to stand apart. The characters are not at all memorable or even particularly original. The film assembles a hodgepodge of animals who are of various shapes, sizes, and colors, each with a distinct, but derivative, personality. Beyond Boomer and Peanut, it's difficult to even remember names. They scamper along, offer some one-off quips, play their part in the plot, and fade from memory from one scene to the next. Even the park isn't constructed with much feel for novelty. Several elements therein play into the plot but it's not as if the film's focal location offers anything of massive creative genius (and why the park in the film is called "Wonderland" and the movie is called Wonder Park, and was originally titled Amusement Park, is anyone's guess). Perhaps it's all by design considering it comes form the mind of a pre-teen child, but the movie's outward essentials offer little of value beyond serving basic plot purposes.

More satisfying, if not more manipulative, is the movie's dramatic current which sees June use her imagination -- the park she and her mother have so thoroughly and lovingly created together -- as an imaginary outlet for her struggles in coping with the idea that she might lose her mother, who has grown terribly ill and must leave the family to seek treatment elsewhere. She burns the park's plans and puts all the toys away out of fear and frustration, and when she stumbles upon the park "in real life" it is in a state of ruin, literally with dark clouds hanging overhead that are sucking up every last remnant of not just the spectacle that once made the park great but also the joy that brought it to life. June chooses to fight for the park, which is essentially a fight for her own mindset, almost willing her mother better by keeping alive that which drew them closest together. It's an obvious, if not still effective, metaphor that will probably go over the heads of younger viewers but that does at least satisfy a need for greater purpose in the film. It's a shame that the support structures and outer components don't find much novelty, or even fun, to carry the more dense and deep material.

Wonder Park Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Despite the name, the multitude of colorful animals, and the promise of amusement park wonders, this is not a particularly robust movie from a visual perspective. It's a bit dull in places, a little dark, a touch flat, not visually uninteresting per se but not exactly the most robust, glitzy, or shiny animated movie ever made. Paramount's 1080p Blu-ray presents the material well enough offering stable details and dependable colors within the movie's visual spectrum. Colorful fireworks in chapter seven are a highlight, and dots of color around the decrepit Wonderland stand out, while the more cheerful tones prior to June's mother's illness and June's departure for math camp are the most impressive and bright hues on offer, revealing character eyes, various toys, and natural greenery with enough visual splendor to satisfy. Texturally, the movie is fairly strong, revealing animal fur and human hair with crisp, individualized definition. Around the run-down version of the park, viewers will appreciate the complexity of overgrown grasses and some of the rusty and worn details on rides and other attractions. The image struggles with minor bouts of aliasing and shimmering but never to a seriously distracting level. Light noise is visible in spots as well but banding and macroblocking are absent.

Wonder Park Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wonder Park features a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless soundtrack. The track offers an appropriately diverse, if only occasionally robust, collection of sounds, particularly during the action scenes where a number of zooms and zips stretch through, across, and around the stage, whether an early film scene when June blasts through her own neighborhood creation of Wonderland or later during the climax when a variety of sound elements converge during the chaotic sequence. Music enjoys quality front side stretch and good general clarity. The low end kicks in on occasion, delivering the first real explosion of bass in chapter seven, and surrounds carry some impressive reverb in chapter eight. Dialogue delivery is clear and well prioritized, maintaining a firm front-center position. Much like the video, there's nothing that stands out here, but the essential qualities carry the film nicely enough.

Wonder Park Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Wonder Park contains a handful of kid-centric featurettes, a sing-along, and a deleted scene. DVD and digital copies of the film are included with purchase. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

• Gus Yodeling - Deleted Scene (1080p, 0:53).
• The Wonder Chimp Channel (1080p, 5:04): A fashion show set to the world of Wonder Park interrupted by breaking news alerts concerning the takeover of the park.
• The Pi-Song Sing-Along (1080p, 1:13): The song's words appear on the screen, surprisingly not in karaoke style.
• Making Noises (It's Actually a Job?!!) (1080p, 4:14): The voice cast shares the joys of working on an animated movie.
• June's Guide to Wonderland (1080p, 2:00): June quickly walks viewers through the thought processes that led to creating the park.
• June's Welcoming Crew (1080p, 2:34): A quick intro to the park's mascots (plus June herself).
• Boardwalk Caricatures (1080p): Art for Kids Hub's Rob, and his helpers Jack, Austin, and Hadley instruct viewers how to draw three characters from the film. Included are Drawing Boomer (8:49), Drawing the Wonder Chimp Pirate (10:28), and Drawing the Wonder Chimp Princess (7:54).

Wonder Park Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Wonder Park is not a wondrous film. It toys along the edges with a few emotional tugs grounded in a good idea and builds it story as a coping mechanism for a girl in fear of losing her mother, but the main draw is not much of a draw at all. It's stale and populated with uninteresting, generic characters. Paramount's Blu-ray is of good quality, delivering adequate 1080p video and 7.1 lossless audio. Supplements are limited to a handful of featurettes, a sing-along, and a deleted scene. Worth a rental.