Director: "Looks really good! Just one thing, have you ever seen a cloud before?"
Animator: "No."
Director: "Me neither. I'm sure it's fine."
This one's got quite great deal of tender, genuinely moving scenes. And for the most part the animation looks striking and original despite the obviously lower budget.
(Aside from the clouds, which I know are supposed to look odd but they're just...so obviously not clouds.)
The compelling story is unfortunately often dampened by poor dialogue. It's unbearably contrived and stilted, too often clumsily telling us what has already been expressed visually just in case we're too dumb to pick up on characters' emotions on our own.
But there's so much vibrant content and heartwarming elements that it's impossible to disregard this film, or even dislike it, entirely.
The Magician's Elephant
2023
Action / Adventure / Animation / Comedy / Drama / Family / Fantasy
The Magician's Elephant
2023
Action / Adventure / Animation / Comedy / Drama / Family / Fantasy
Plot summary
Peter is searching for his long-lost sister when he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square. His only question is: is his sister still alive? The answer, that he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician who will conjure it, sets Peter off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change the face of his town forever.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
March 17, 2023 at 06:10 PM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Compelling but clumsily written
Pretty fun watch
Another animation film gone straight to streaming, which is such a shame.
The film is very beautiful visually, showing us different and unique places, and in a style that is very pleasing.
The story is interesting, although perhaps not as daring as other recent animated films and at times felt a little too simple. Some themes needed more depth, but the plot is entertaining. As much as it was not as creatively original as say the Spider-man Spider-Verse films, it was a pleasant experience and left an extremely positive balance.
I did enjoy that the moral lesson is very well crafted, always reminding us how we must never lose hope, regardless of the challenge.
The Magician's Elephant
A young orphan "Peter" has been brought up by a disciplinarian former-soldier, but longs to find his long-lost sister from whom he was parted at the height of war. Out for the daily shopping (stale bread and fish), he espies a tent in which a fortune teller offers to tell his future. It seems that he might be reconciled with his sibling - but for that he has to follow the elephant, and there hasn't been one in his town for an age. Meantime, a rather hapless magician is trying to entertain the great and the good in the town's theatre when - low and behold - he conjures up... The king arrives in the town to inspect this magically contrived and noisy pachyderm and decrees that if "Peter" can carry out three impossible tasks, he can keep it! The three impossible tasks are quite entertaining, as is the whole film. The story is all a little predictable and it does stray into sentimentality just a bit too often, but it's an engaging family drama with some fun characters and colourful scenarios. Maybe a bit too wordy and probably fifteen minutes too long - it takes an age to get going - it is still a gently entertaining watch that imbues the lead character with some imagination and legerdemain and one that I quite enjoyed on a big screen.