Sing is the latest film from Illumination Entertainment, the animation studio responsible for the Despicable Me series and The Lorax. From this studio, I previously watched the first Despicable Me movie and The Lorax; both of which I struggle to remember even basic elements about them. Both of these movies were fad cash-ins that went in one ear and out the other. I remember sitting down to watch them and that’s where my memory of the experiences ends.

Therefore, when the trailer for Sing came out and I saw the anthropomorphic renditions of-passable at best-pop songs, I shrugged my shoulders and wondered how long it will be until people abruptly end the quoting of this movie too. It was no question that I was not going to waste my money on this movie. Yet, I am writing this review now because my mother saw the trailer, expressed an interest in seeing it, and I'm always up for a trip to the movies with my mom, so off we went to see Sing. 

Something I will admit right off the bat; I liked this movie better than I thought I would, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it. It's no reason to celebrate that I remember certain scenes from this movie more than I did Despicable Me and The Lorax. While the jokes were funny for neither children nor adults and the moral lesson was a cliché at best, those flaws were not the biggest crimes of the movie. No, the biggest crime of the movie especially seeing as how it's for kids, is that it was lazy.

Why have the characters be anthropomorphic animals if the animators were not going to take advantage of that setup? Why have the liar revealed cliché if the characters were going to think nothing of it? If the theatre that the lead koala-bear-voiced-by-Matthew-McConaughey-whose-name-I-couldn't-remember-if-my-life-depended-on-it runs and owns is going out of business, why leave out any perceivable history of the place to give us an ounce of caring for it?

At least in Despicable Me, there was a villainous protagonist who had a funny moment here and there. At least in The Lorax, the animation was bright and colorful. But Sing is the equivalent of eating a chips as opposed to a steak for dinner; it may bring brief delight, but has no lasting value and gives you no reason to brag to your friends about the experience. 

While I'm not the biggest fan of kids, I think they deserve better than the equivalent of junk food for the mind. Mostly, I would think nothing of a movie like Sing and would move with my movie-watching life. But as I write this review, Sing gets more and more under my skin. These filmmakers were making movies like this even before Illumination Entertainment existed. They are not trying to make their films better, they are trying to make a quick buck. They are insulting the intelligence of kids with their forgettable antics, and parents are completely okay with this.

If this were an isolated incident, I would not be as appalled as I am. But this studio is treating the art of filmmaking like an assembly line. I can't ask Illumination Entertainment to make better movies if the public is constantly funding these forgettable and predictable farces. Sing had decent energy and voice-acting to it (except for that sparkly-dressed pig) and could have been a good movie. I truly feel like this studio has the potential to be a new Dreamworks if it got a team of better writers, but until that day, I will just be thankful that my mom funded this trip to the theatre. (Side note, my mom hated it even more than I did).