Review for FernGully: The Last Rainforest (Review Sample)
I. Love. This. Piece. It was, is, and always will be one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. If I’m bored and have a particularly lazy Sunday ahead of me, I revisit things I remember enjoying as a child to see if they hold up to me, an “adult” with a “degree in creative writing” and a “film minor.” Sometimes things age gracefully (Batman Beyond) and sometimes they don’t. Enter FernGully: The Last Rainforest. I’m including this review on my portfolio as a way to highlight my ability to synopsize, my distinctive voice (especially when I don’t like something), and my way of doing bite-sized analysis. It was fun to write and fun to read for me, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Review for FernGully: The Last Rainforest
The 1992 animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest is a film championed by many (my sister, mostly) as a staple for their childhood film viewing experience. Its wholesome message, while spread with good intentions, is beaten into you with an object as hard as a recently deforested tree. The story, brimming with uncreatively named characters, follows a young pixie, Crysta (Samantha Mathis), as she attempts to keep her rainforest safe from the vague, black, sludgey monster, Hexxus (Tim Curry), while flitting about in an uncomfortably skimpy outfit with her exhaustively dull human friend, Zak (Johnathan Ward). Once the so-called plot begins, the viewer can easily predict where it is going to go. Human is bad. Makes things worse. Girl and guy fall in love despite having absolutely nothing in common other than being uncomfortably attractive. Love triangle. Human learns lesson. Helps save the day. That’s mostly it.
The no doubt child-traumatizing villain, Hexxus, creeps his way over to FernGully with no real sense of urgency. Meanwhile, the protagonists force the plot along using unconvincing dialogue from voice actors who don’t seem wholly invested in the project they are contributing to. The choppy line delivery and inconsistent animation quality makes one wonder if this gully of ferns is really worth saving. However, these dull characters do have occasional sparks of energy when confronted by Robin Williams’ character, Batty. This bat, yet another one of Williams’ big-nosed and zany characters, helps provide some semblance of charisma in an overall emotionally stagnant film. But even Robin Williams cannot help save the ironic trash fire that is this film. No character can seem to decide what they feel and their personalities can change so drastically that it will leave one in a state of disbelief (not something you want in a film about saving the environment). Whether it be the mood swings of an equally skimpy male pixie, Pips (Christian Slater), or the sudden affection for humans that Batty shows Zak despite being antagonistic toward him for the first three quarters of the film, the only consistent character in the entire film is the delightfully evil tar monster.
The film also includes a pointless romantic subplot because women are objects to be sought after and can’t be the heroes of their own movie. Pips and Zak momentarily compete for Crysta’s attention before joining forces to protect the gully. Zak attempts to woo Crysta by lying to her repeatedly, calling her “a bodacious babe”, and kissing her without consent. You know, the standard 90s male protagonist starting-kit. Once Hexxus is defeated and trapped in a tree, Zak has to decide if he is going to stay. He inevitably leaves FernGully in an attempt to save it from further deforestation machines, but I doubt, “a hot pixie I met in the woods taught me the importance of nature,” will get him very far.
Ultimately this film won’t be ill-received by children, although perhaps we should consider waiting to show it to them in case a more nuanced children’s film about climate change comes along. As it stands, the main villain isn’t humanity’s apathy towards the saving our planet from ourselves, as it should be, but instead the film misplaces /deflects the blame onto a sentient smog monster whose main goal is to simply Be Evil.