Spark: A Space Tail
Spark: A Space Tail
PG | 14 April 2017 (USA)
Spark: A Space Tail Trailers

Spark, a teenage monkey and his friends, Chunk and Vix, are on a mission to regain Planet Bana - a kingdom overtaken by the evil overlord Zhong.

Reviews
stiansmerud

I really like the characters and creature design in the this movie, but the story was a mess and a lot of really stupid jokes. The main character Spark is like any teenager hero they create out there, but he is not unlikable. His biggest flaw is that they don't give him enough flaws, they try to make him this always right guy and it had been much better seeing him fail. As I said, the story is a mess and it really overshadows the characters. Had love to see them again actually, but with the box office it got it's unlikely.

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Animated Antic

There have been many animated movies that have been set in space. Some are done well that they are remembered for years to come, others are done badly that they are quickly forgotten. "Spark", however, is a movie so bad that it belongs in a $5 DVD barrel, near the bottom in fact. If you've never heard of this movie before, good. I'm glad that you don't know about it, because it's horrible. Honestly, it's one of the worst animated movies I have ever seen in my entire life. I'll explain why right now why this movie is absolutely terrible.The evil General Zhong (Alan C. Peterson) has taken over the planet the planet of Bana and has sucked up the planets inhabitants into a mysterious black hole made by a creature called the Kracken who has also broken up the planet into several shards. Thirteen years have past since then and three of the survivors named Spark (Jace Norman), Vix (Jessica Biel) and Chunk (Rob deLeeuw) have been living on underground on a garbage shard in secret with the latter two of the survivors participating in secret missions trying to overthrow the evil general. Spark, however, is left alone on the shard and wants to leave it to find his parents. After intercepting an e-mail from the Queen of Bana (Hillary Swank) asking Vix to go on a mission, Spark decides to steal the space ship on the shards to participate in an "epic space mission". What follows is a film filled with many plot holes, clichéd story lines, and elements stolen from better movies resulting in an epic disaster.I haven't hated an animated movie so much since I saw last years abysmal "Norm of the North" and while it's slightly better than that film, it still really left me feeling very angry and disgusted. From what I found out, this movie apparently cost nearly forty million dollars to make which absolutely appalled me. I can easily tell that the movies budget went into getting the Oscar winning actors that appear in the movie including Susan Sarandon, Hillary Swank, and even Patrick Stuart. The reason I say this is because the animation of this movie is inexcusably bad. It looked like it was made by a student who is just starting to use computer animation as the whole film looked like some overly cartoony video game. The story was also pretty painful. The film rips off elements that have been done better in other movies including the evil uncle from "Lion King", the elements of the force and laser swords from "Star Wars", the robot designs from "Terminator" and also the slow motion elements from "The Matrix". It was pretty painful seeing these elements done terribly. As for the characters, they're pretty forgettable and  boring. They don't do anything interesting and have nothing standing out about them. I also really hated there names. Hearing these names made me think that they were create by a first grader. Then again, if you told me this movie was written by a first grader, I'd believe that. The only element that was slightly enjoyable was the voice acting. The actors at least tried with what they were given, but I am frustrated that they signed on to do this movie."Spark" is one of the worst animated movies I've seen in a very long time. It was so unoriginal, confusing as well as being very boring that it really angered me. I don't know what else to say, just don't watch it.  Don't even show your kids this disaster. My only advice is to skip this movie entirely and never watch it whatsoever. You'll live a happier life if you don't watch it.

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Edward Grabczewski

It's hard to believe that so many people made this film and yet nobody asked the question "Why cares about this story?".I don't like having to work too hard trying to figure out the plot or what motivates the characters into action, but after ten minutes I was still asking myself "what's the point of this movie?".For me the animation was fine. Had the story been a good one then I wouldn't care about how realistic the characters are portrayed - it's a kid's animation so I don't expect it to look lifelike.But I did wonder about the language. I don't think my 4, 7 and 9 year old kids know what "flailing" means, together with a script and story that seemed a little beyond their reach. Having said that, they all sat and watched the film, happily eating their popcorn and apples and said they enjoyed it. So what do parents know?

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negablade

The movie follows the story of a teenage monkey named Spark, whose planet is partially destroyed when an evil monkey named Zhong summons the space kraken. 13 years later, Spark seeks to fight back and free his world and the universe from the evil rule of Zhong.The story is cliché, but has the potential to be engaging for children and adults alike. We have an inexperienced young protagonist learning about himself and overcoming the odds. We have a slightly comedic antagonist. We have a voice talent of Patrick Stewart, who has already shown what he can do in a kids animated movie with such gems as Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Unfortunately, even the voice talent of Patrick could not save this messFor a start, the movie can't decide what it wants to be. Many of the jokes are likely to go over the heads of children. And most adults who get the jokes will not think they are funny. It tries to appeal to adults and kids, and ends up failing to appeal to either. When children in the theater are more interested in scooting down the stairs in the aisle, you know something is wrong.We also never get to see the characters grow or develop. At the end of the movie, I couldn't care less about Spark or his journey. His companions are forgettable. The problem is that the story is shallow and lets the movie down. We can't sympathise with the hero because we don't get to share any emotions with him. Spark really has little to overcome and doesn't grow much as a character. The space roaches are comedic foils, similar to Scrat from Ice Age. Scrat's trials with his acorn provide a short interlude that breaks up the main plot into smaller pieces. Moreover, we end up feeling for him as we share his failures and his successes. That is probably why he is such an engaging character and has developed a fan base all his own. The space roaches do not share the same success. They are underdeveloped and irritating, instead distracting from the main story with pointless sight gags and mimicry jokes.Finally, expect to see a lot of references to better movies. Star Wars in particular is sprinkled throughout, but also expect a little Lion King imagery just for fun. Unfortunately, here the movie fails again. The Star Wars references are cringe-worthy because they are so blatant, completely out of character, and unexplained. And as for the Lion King reference, when Mufasa appeared to Simba, I felt Simba's fear that he wouldn't match up to his father, and his growing resolve that he had to fight Scar for the sake of the Pridelands. When Spark's father appeared to him, I only thought 'Where is his mouth and what am I looking at?' Beyond that, I just didn't care.In summary, this movie is left trying to find an audience. The stories and characters were underdeveloped, and the jokes fail to appeal to any age group.

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