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Justin And The Knights Of Valour
(2013)

Director: Manuel Sicilia
Voice Cast:
Freddie Highmore, Antonio Banderas, James Cosmo


I want to ask you a question, especially if you don't live in North America. The last time when you went to your local multiplex theater, what movies were playing there? Well, unless you are from a country like North Korea (though I have good reason to doubt that any of my readership comes from that country), the answer will almost certainly be that most - if not all - of the movies that were playing at your neighborhood multiplex theater were Hollywood movies. While there are a few countries out there (like India) where the citizens generally prefer their homegrown product, in most countries Hollywood movies grab most of the screen time. This is not always bad - if you were to see the typical movies my country makes year after year, you would understand why my fellow citizens don't seem to mind all that much that Hollywood grabs pretty much all the screens in theaters up here. But with many other countries, it has to be admitted that a lot of the time it's a shame that the local film industries don't get the exposure they want for their movies. While it's certainly true that most of the foreign movies that play in North America are generally serious dramas and arty fare, contrary to what many people believe, a number of countries that make these dramas and art movies also do make movies that are more commercial in nature. In other words, they also make (you guessed it!) real movies. And I'm certainly open to watching a foreign movie as long as it is a real movie, because I know from experience that a lot of these movies can be just as entertaining as Hollywood movies, sometimes even more so.

Having sampled a lot of foreign movies over the years thanks to surviving video stores, the eclectic movie selection at my local library, and several major streaming services I subscribe to, it's long been interesting to me to see how foreign film industries compete against Hollywood when they often have less money and resources. Sometimes they do this by offering something in a manner that Hollywood would never do. For example, there is the Hong Kong movie industry. When it comes to martial arts action movies, they have often shown martial art sequences with choreography and energy that you would never find in a Chuck Norris movie. (Sadly, however, more recent Hong Kong martial arts movies have been slipping towards filming martial arts with rapid edits and the camera jammed very close to the participants - just like the inferior way that Hollywood has for the most part been depicting martial art sequences for years.) Quite often, however, foreign film industries have attempted to take on Hollywood by tackling the same genres Hollywood regularly tackles, despite having a lot less money. Sometimes this can be done quite easily - for example, many foreign comedies can be pulled off quite cheaply, since they depend mainly on the script and cast to pull off the gags instead of special effects. Then there are animated movies. Now, as you no doubt know, animation has always been expensive and time consuming. And because of that, many foreign animated movies in the past have looked quite drab and clunky compared to what Hollywood was putting out at the same time. But there are definitely some foreign animated movies that manage to look quite nice and polished. For example, I thought that the 2006 French animated movie Asterix And The Vikings was colorful and well animated. It even had a pretty good story, though I feel I should point out that I was very familiar with the French Asterix comic books, and people who haven't read those comics may be somewhat lost while watching the movie.

I feel I should point out that I have been talking about classic hand drawn foreign animated movies up to here. There is a new ball game in town all over the world when it comes to animated movies, and that is of course computer animated movies. When it comes to non-Hollywood computer Justin And The Knights Of Valouranimated movies, I have to admit that I haven't managed up to now to sample very many. Practically none, I have to admit. But I have been long curious about the foreign attempts to tackle this particular genre. I know that it takes a lot of money to make a typical Hollywood computer animated movie look good, and when you don't have tens of millions of dollars, you often get something shoddy looking like Hoodwinked. So I have to admit that my hopes were not particularly high at first when I got my hands on a DVD copy of the Spanish computer animated movie Justin And The Knights Of Valour. But then I reminded myself that I had said in the past that a good script can make up for sub-par animation. After remembering that, I was more open to watching the movie. The story takes place hundreds of years ago in the kingdom of Gabylonia. A young man by the name of Justin (voice of Freddie Highmore, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory) has dreams of becoming a knight like his legendary grandfather was. However, we soon learn that a while back, the kingdom got rid of knights completely, and the country is now essentially controlled by lawyers (!) Justin's father Reginald (Alfred Molina, Dudley Do-Right), a lawyer himself, is pushing Justin to become a lawyer as well. But with the encouragement of his grandmother (Julie Walters, Mamma Mia!), Justin decides to follow his dreams. He decides that he will become a knight by recovering his grandfather's lost sword, and promptly sets off on his quest. What Justin does not know, however, is that at the same time a former knight by the name of Sir Heraclio (Mark Strong, Kick-Ass) has just returned from exile, and is secretly forming an army to overthrow the Queen to get back at her for outlawing knights. And while Justin makes some friends during his quest, like a friendly barmaid named Talia (Saoirse Ronan, The Grand Budapest Hotel) and Justin's grandfather's former knight friend Blucher (James Cosmo, Highlander) they might not be enough support for Justin to save the Queen from being overthrown, especially with the introduction of additional foes like the phony knight Sir Clorex (Antonio Banderas, Spy Kids).

I freely admit that when it comes to watching an animated movie - whether it's animated in a traditional style or with modern computer graphics - I would prefer the animated movie to have a good script yet lacklustre animation rather than having a poor script but fantastic animation. All the same, I do root hard for the movie to have pleasing animation, as well as good art design. And it's likely one of your big questions is if Justin stands up proudly when it comes to animation and art design. Well, despite the opening credits of the movie listing about ten production and funding agencies, the filmmakers didn't exactly have a Pixar-like production budget. I'm not saying that the movie looks pretty bad - there is an acceptable amount of detail with the characters (including animating shadows for them), and the backgrounds look okay. But all the same, the look of the movie is similar to what you would find in many American computer animated television shows for kids. There is a kind of stiff feeling to what you see, with the characters' looks (hair on the characters seldom moves, for instance) and with their not quite fluid movements. Little details, like boats in water bobbing or trees in the background moving slightly in the wind, are often simply not there at all, giving the movie a quite unnatural and somewhat cheap feeling. Also, for some reason, the general color scheme of the movie is quite subdued, lacking the very bright colors more often than not found in American computer animated movies and television shows. While kids may not have much (if any) objections to the look of the movie, adults who have been around the animated block for many years will see that visually, Justin can't compete too much with the big Hollywood boys.

But as I said in the opening of the previous paragraph, I am more concerned with an animated movie's script than its animation and art design. However, Justin's script apparently didn't go through the same rigorous work that Pixar scripts go through before animation starts. Many characters you will have seen in many other movies before, such as the spoiled rich girl Justin is initially in love with. The fact that Justin is hopelessly in love with this woman despite her constantly acting in a rich b*tch fashion didn't exactly endear him to this critic. In fact, he seems dumb in other manners throughout the movie, such as the fact that he apparently didn't notice for years that the sacred sword that his grandfather wielded in the past was missing with the display of his grandfather's armor at his grandmother's house. Quite possibly some sympathy for Justin could have been generated by providing some good villains for him to fight, but alas, that does not happen. Heraclio surprisingly does not have that much screen time up to the climactic duel between him and Justin. Instead, more time is given to his henchman Sota, whose constant prancing behavior, fascination with curtains and women's clothing, and statements like "I'm looking for men - real men!" when he frees some criminals in a dungeon make him possibly the first gay character to be in a computer animated family movie, beating Disney/Pixar's Lightyear to the punch by nine years. (Sota is voiced by Rupert Everett of My Best Friend's Wedding fame, by the way.) Other characters in the movie such as Talia get short shift as well, making us in the audience having to fill in the gaps with memories of these same characters in movies we've seen before. As for the story aspect of the movie, it is pretty hopeless as well. Many important plot details are held back for a long time, making parts of the movie somewhat unclear at times. Other story elements are given awkward exposition, such as when Heraclio has a long monologue to himself explaining who he is and why he's so bad.

The script for Justin also pretty much fails when it comes to the ingredient just about any animated family movie has - humor. It's often low energy and unsubtle slapstick, such as people spitting into mugs of beer that are subsequently drunk with enthusiasm, people socked in the crotch, or birds crapping onto people's faces. Other attempts at humor that don't use slapstick are simply not funny, depending on the characters to be pretty stupid to try and generate laughs. As for the movie's moral lesson - You've got to believe in yourself! - that has been done so many times before, that you would have to find a really fresh way to make the audience really pay attention to it in this day and age, something that the director of this movie was apparently hopeless at. As a matter of fact, director Manuel Sicilia (The Missing Lynx) did not apparently approach the movie with a lot of enthusiasm, given the movie's surprisingly low energy level for most of the running time. There are a few bits that have some excitement - Justin in training fighting a fire-breathing "dragon", the climactic duel between Justin and Heraclio - but apart from isolated moments like these, the movie plods along at a shockingly drab pace. Most scenes feel like Sicilia has the camera nailed down, and then has his computer animated characters go through the motions without any energy. It's possible that those same kids who won't mind the sub-par animation and art design might still go for the entire package that is Justin - especially if they haven't seen a lot of better animated movies - but really, why would you subject your kids to a low rent imitation when much better animated movies are easily available? For that matter, why would you, an adult, want to watch this movie?

(Posted August 22, 2021)

Check for availability on Amazon (DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack)

See also: Hugo The Hippo, Pinocchio In Outer Space, Titanic: The Animated Movie

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