'Sing' - Movie Review

Set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, we open on Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) talking about the greatness of his theatre ... which is quickly contradicted by proof of how deeply in debt he is. He has the clever idea to have a singing contest for a prize of all the money he has, $1000 ... but his secretary misprints it and sends out hundreds of flyers that say $100,000. So he gets lots of applicants. And they're all characters, and we're introduced to the daily lives of the best of them. Rosita the pig has a husband who pays her no attention, and 25 piglets. Johnny is a good singer, but his dad keeps pressuring to join the gang and rob banks. Etc.

The animation is pretty good, and the cast list is seriously impressive (McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly). But the plot is remarkably pedestrian and straight-forward. It's not actually bad and has some good gags (Rosita's household automation comes to mind), but it's neither as entertaining nor as funny as it should be. Egerton stands out as Johnny, and his performance of Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" is pretty good. But when "pretty good" is the highlight of your film, it's not a winner.