Did you ever want to see the animated version of a lackluster vacation to a sub-par Disney World? Well, never fear, they made it!
Wonder Park is about a girl named June Bailey. She’s something years old — a part of me says 1st grade but she says some precocious things throughout so who knows. June and her mother invent an imaginary world called Wonder Land that features talking animals as the main highlight. One day June’s mother gets ill and needs to step away, leaving June wondering if her theme park idea is worth imagining. That is until the real life version of Wonder Land comes to life, and a dark force is threatening to destroy it. Can June and her animal friends restore the park to it’s “Splendiforous” state?
So, right off the bat, I remember being very hesitant to see this movie. It looked well animated and colorful but didn’t seem to have a story worth feature length. That fear was simultaneously weakened and heightened once buying my ticket and starting the movie after all the trailers. (Side note: I realize now that I will be seeing a lot of the same trailers over and over these next few months.)
Starting with characters, June reminds me of what a young Rapunzel from Tangled may have been like. She enjoys designing and expressing her imagination, she has some mommy issues, and has a propensity with animals. June, unlike Rapunzel, is two-dimensional and bland. I feel that part of the problem is her age: I don’t really know how old she is so I don’t know if how she’s acting is totally out-of-line. One minute she’s building a real-life rollercoaster from stolen street objects, heads out to math camp, and is offering to help her dad do taxes. The next minute she’s carrying around a monster backpack with googly eyes and coming up with a fantasy that her dad will blow up the house due to negligence. Is this funny because a 6 (ish) year old is thinking that stuff up when clearly she shouldn’t know those things? Where are the bounds of logic?
If I had to guess, I would say June is probably a gifted 1st grade student; she exhibits high-level language while keeping a child-like attitude. Maybe the idea is that she grew up too fast because her mom got sick of a mystery illness (but didn’t die, that’d be way too much for this movie to handle.) But even before the mom leaves June is showing her skills off. June’s dad even calls her a “lunatic daughter” early in the movie! Are the writers suggesting she’s off her rocker? One of the animals even suggests that they could figments of her crazy mind. And you know, they never disproved that either. She could be imagining the whole theme park with itsLooney Tunes antics on the bus ride to math camp; there’s no way it took her 30 minutes to get back home from the woods anyway.
So let’s just agree that June’s true age is indeterminate. (Get it? I made a math joke and a reference to how a part of this movie is about math camp and singing a song about pi. For some reason …)
The animals are just talking animals. I know everyone has a famous voice actor but honestly, I only knew John Oliver was playing the porcupine. I’m sure the character has a name but I’m too disinterested to bother.). And sad to say, I didn’t even know it was him until halfway through when his character started screaming; John Oliver has a very intentional and recognizable scream.
Also, a small animal likes being around a warthog? This is the romantic-free version of Timon and Pumba. (At least Timon and Pumba know how to talk about deep concepts.) I don’t care how many times John Oliver yells Spanish phrases of adoration, I am not going to buy it.
The animal that wasn’t really shown in the trailer but should have been highlighted would be Peanut the monkey. When I first saw him, I thought he was going to be the twist/hidden villain, because then it’d make sense why you barely see him. Then I remembered that this isn’t a modern-day Disney film, it’s a Paramount/Nickelodeon team up. That meant his story would be even more cliche and less memorable. Peanut is basically June: his muse went away and he’s sad and scared to create new things. I don’t know why he’s absent in most of the promo materials, considering he’s the one with the magic pen that creates anything and how much of a reflection to June he really is. The filmmakers went, “Nah, let’s just stick with the Charmin bear reject.” Peanut deserved better, even in this film. Though he does have that creepy smile every so often that makes me hesitant to want to always see him.
(Speaking of creepy choices, why are there so many extreme facial close-ups in this movie? Is cornea storytelling the new thing in children’s animation?)
June’s Mom and Dad are nice I guess, but they hardly matter as individuals and only June’s mom matters in regards to how the mom getting sick affects her daughter. I don’t even know what June’s mom was sick with! I do like that one scene at the start of the movie where the parents get the bad news from the doctor. That was a quiet scene but it didn’t need words to muck it all up. Of course, I much prefer how Pixar’s Up did this scene, but that’s a common thread throughout the movie.
June’s friend is a mild stereotype. He’s nice but not interesting. The most memorable scene he’s in is when June’s coaster contraption nearly kills them both and he says, “Thank Vishnu!” It’s funny because he’s Indian …? Why was he in this movie? They didn’t even do a parallel between June/her friend’s crush and lady warthog’s/Oliver porcupine’s crush. June doesn’t spontaneously decide to like her friend after her adventure, so his character really just serves as a plot point for June to get off the bus to math camp and get to the park.
Would I recommend this movie? Only if you liked Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. A lot of people evidently hated that movie too or thought it was a mediocre use of high list celebrities. Quite frankly because Emporium was live action I more appreciated the visuals there because I know props and sets take a long time to make. Wonder Park is also lively and colorful, but to a fault considering it looks like a generic animated film. This movie is a time passer, but not much more in my honest opinion.
Anima of Animation 