Wonder Park - An Amazingly Animated Kid-friendly Movie Just For Fun

After 2 days playing in Indonesian theaters, my wife and I finally saw this movie yesterday. It was quite unusual for us to not be seeing a new film on its premiere date, but as it did not play in the theater near our home, we had to look for other theaters as alternative. Luckily it played in another cinema chain not that far. OK we shall start with the movie now.

Brief Story Line (to avoid possible spoiler, go direct to below this section for my views)

June (Brianna Denski) was a young kid who had very high imagination and together with her mother (Jennifer Garner - Peppermint etc) created an imaginative amusement park in their minds called Wonder Park. It was filled with various ridiculously wild rides and accompanied by some charming animals such as Boomer (Ken Hudson Campbell) the blue bear with "hibernate disorder", Greta (Mila Kunis - The Spy Who Dumped Me etc) the firm but kind-hearted boar, Steve (John Oliver) the intelligent porcupine, plus the talkative beaver brothers Gus (Kenan Thompson - Grinch animated version etc) and Cooper (Ken Jeong - Goosebumps 2 etc). The host of this Wonder Park was a charming chimpanzee called Peanut (Norbert Leo Butz). All these animals were actually stuffed dolls that June had in her room.

As she grew older and having had an issue of her own, June started to lose interest in playing & creating the Wonder Park. Unbeknownst to her, this lack of interest resulted to Wonder Park becoming more like a dying amusement park. Due to some unexpected event after her father (Matthew Broderick - The Cable Guy etc) sent her to math camp, June was accidentally "transported" to Wonder Park and realized she must do something to save it. 

So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this kid-friendly animated movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Yaaa, when I saw the trailer to this movie first time, I thought this looked like a fun movie but I could also picture it would be more of a film for the younger generation. And it turned out to be just like that. This was a good animated movie where the lead character was a young girl (voiced nicely by this 11 year old newcomer Brianna Denski) with her very wild imagination of creating & playing amusement park of her own. Since it was a movie seemingly aimed for kids, it was no surprise that the story was quite light where audience would not be expected to overthink about the logic and just use our imagination.

The movie was filled with fun moments through the playing of various rides in the Wonder Park. We could also be entertained by the amusing moments of Boomer's sudden asleep and his fear of heights, or the "fights" between the two beaver brothers, or Greta's seemingly wise comments. Of all those animals characters, my most favorite were definitely Boomer with his uniqueness and Greta who was voiced by Mila Kunis (which my wife was able to recognize). But to me personally, the beautiful relationship between June and her mother was the main highlight of the story (My wife was so touched by the various emotional moments involving these two characters). Oh, Banky who was June's neighbor was also quite hilarious and provided some fun for us as well.

The animation in this film was very beautifully done. The rides seemed frighteningly realistic (especially during the jet coaster ride). I thought that if we saw this one in 3D, the effects would be really amazing. Unfortunately though, this movie did not have a 3D version playing in Indonesia. The film also had some nice songs and one song in particular sounded very funny towards the end. Btw, this movie was quite short as it only had 85 minutes duration which included the end credit scene. While we watched till the very end, we were also accompanied by nice song and some funny animation of the wild chimpanzee every now and then. But there was no mid or post end credit scene.

Overall I personally felt this movie was a nice enough 3D animated movie with beautifully done animation, few fun characters but suited more for the younger kids. It was certainly a movie that would make children happy and the parents satisfied with providing a safe entertainment for their kids. If anything, the parents (or the more adults audience) could have fun as well by reliving childhood experience of playing with neighbors or parents. My wife and I did enjoy this film and I know my wife was touched by it too. Oh and from what I read in the internet, there would be an animated series on Nickelodeon channel where you could continue watching these characters and the Wonder Park.

So if you are looking for such movie, then this one should be a good option. This was a film to be enjoyed and not overthought/over-analyzed. It was not up to the heights of Disney or Pixar studios movies yet, but should be sufficient for pure fun. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars