User reviews

Not the best animated feature I ever seen. I feel sorry for some of the stars in the movie like Jessica Biel, Susan Sarandon, Hilary Swank and Patrick Stewart who picked the wrong animated feature to voice. Possibly thought it was going to be a hit cause it was an animated feature.

The animation is very mediocre. Feels like there they created a program for generic computer animation that can spit out animation films that all look the same and Spark decided to use this instead of animators. Most importantly, the story was lame. I've seen the story a million times. One could point out that if you look at this hard enough you can see the same story as the Lion King in Spark, but that's not the point. Spark's vision to add their own twist to this story fell very short of being decent.

Wanted to like it but didn't happen.

http://cinemagardens.com

It's hard to believe that so many people made this film and yet nobody asked the question "Why cares about this story?".

I don't like having to work too hard trying to figure out the plot or what motivates the characters into action, but after ten minutes I was still asking myself "what's the point of this movie?".

For me the animation was fine. Had the story been a good one then I wouldn't care about how realistic the characters are portrayed - it's a kid's animation so I don't expect it to look lifelike.

But I did wonder about the language. I don't think my 4, 7 and 9 year old kids know what "flailing" means, together with a script and story that seemed a little beyond their reach. Having said that, they all sat and watched the film, happily eating their popcorn and apples and said they enjoyed it. So what do parents know?

The movie follows the story of a teenage monkey named Spark, whose planet is partially destroyed when an evil monkey named Zhong summons the space kraken. 13 years later, Spark seeks to fight back and free his world and the universe from the evil rule of Zhong.

The story is cliché, but has the potential to be engaging for children and adults alike. We have an inexperienced young protagonist learning about himself and overcoming the odds. We have a slightly comedic antagonist. We have a voice talent of Patrick Stewart, who has already shown what he can do in a kids animated movie with such gems as Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Unfortunately, even the voice talent of Patrick could not save this mess

For a start, the movie can't decide what it wants to be. Many of the jokes are likely to go over the heads of children. And most adults who get the jokes will not think they are funny. It tries to appeal to adults and kids, and ends up failing to appeal to either. When children in the theater are more interested in scooting down the stairs in the aisle, you know something is wrong.

We also never get to see the characters grow or develop. At the end of the movie, I couldn't care less about Spark or his journey. His companions are forgettable. The problem is that the story is shallow and lets the movie down. We can't sympathise with the hero because we don't get to share any emotions with him. Spark really has little to overcome and doesn't grow much as a character. The space roaches are comedic foils, similar to Scrat from Ice Age. Scrat's trials with his acorn provide a short interlude that breaks up the main plot into smaller pieces. Moreover, we end up feeling for him as we share his failures and his successes. That is probably why he is such an engaging character and has developed a fan base all his own. The space roaches do not share the same success. They are underdeveloped and irritating, instead distracting from the main story with pointless sight gags and mimicry jokes.

Finally, expect to see a lot of references to better movies. Star Wars in particular is sprinkled throughout, but also expect a little Lion King imagery just for fun. Unfortunately, here the movie fails again. The Star Wars references are cringe-worthy because they are so blatant, completely out of character, and unexplained. And as for the Lion King reference, when Mufasa appeared to Simba, I felt Simba's fear that he wouldn't match up to his father, and his growing resolve that he had to fight Scar for the sake of the Pridelands. When Spark's father appeared to him, I only thought 'Where is his mouth and what am I looking at?' Beyond that, I just didn't care.

In summary, this movie is left trying to find an audience. The stories and characters were underdeveloped, and the jokes fail to appeal to any age group.

This review of Spark: A Space Tail is spoiler free

** (2/5)

IF CURIOUS GEORGE and Space Chimps left you feeling frustrated at their fun ideas yet dodgy final execution, which was perhaps left unfinished. Then writer-director Aaron Woodley's Spark: A Space Tail will leave you furious, an uncharismatic CG animation with a lot of ideas but left with a dodgy final execution.

Opening with Spark (Jace Norman) a high-spirited teenage chimpanzee who believes he can save his lost planet Bana - which was sucked up by a space kraken. He and his two best friends - a chubby Walrus Chunk (Rob deLeeuw), perhaps as a remake on the titular chubby Goonies character and a tough-hearted skinny fox named Vix (Jessica Biel). Together they go on a quest to save their homeland from evil overlord Zhong (A.C. Peterson). Plot-wise it's WALL-E and Star Wars, Spark lives on a distant planetary shard used as a junk yard, among his friends he has a green cockroach and a clunky old robot - Bananny (Susan Sarandon) for company. Quickly changing formula to another sci-fi epic namely Spark wielding a double-sided light sword perhaps as a reference to Darth Maul, yet a far less memorable one.

The ideas pile on from other references to sci-fi to pop culture, a lot goes on at any given moment but even the most fluid moments fail to finish or at least spark inspiration. At its best the animation is mediocrely primitive looking like it came out in 2005 - given that it shines the brightest light other ideas are left in the shadows. The third act shines the brightest, here the ideas come to a halt and it looks the most original, shining in the full glory of creativity. Here Spark learns of his true heritage, he learns that he is more than he thinks he is - armed with this knowledge he turns out to be a stronger leader.

Along with the piling ideas coming to an end there are a couple of gags namely Patrick Stewart's The Captain pulls the most laughs - hilariously getting struck by lighting and losing all memory of he is "Outstanding" he says when he learns pinnacle information about his body. He shines the brightest light; he proves to be the most charming and brings smiles to this bland animation. Spark: A Space Tail is a bland, uncharismatic and unmemorable animated comedy which has the space for creativity but lacks the spark of inspiration that it desperately needs to liftoff.

VERDICT: A mishmash of space romp combined with half-ish references, unfunny one-liners and an unremittingly charmless all-star cast which fails to achieve liftoff.

I really like the characters and creature design in the this movie, but the story was a mess and a lot of really stupid jokes. The main character Spark is like any teenager hero they create out there, but he is not unlikable. His biggest flaw is that they don't give him enough flaws, they try to make him this always right guy and it had been much better seeing him fail. As I said, the story is a mess and it really overshadows the characters. Had love to see them again actually, but with the box office it got it's unlikely.

1. Animation quality is poor, foreground action was plastic looking; background was static and flat. 2. Another example of famous actors doing voice overs that don't match the character and sound Hollywood artificial. About emotionally real as daytime game show prompted atmosphere. 3. Simplistic and predictable dialogue at a 4th grade level. 4. Really bad science and a poor way to introduce anyone to science. A mix of human, animal and bizarre made-up characters on a CGI planet that looked more like plastic than anything natural and alive. Planet breaks apart from a cyclone black hole only to emerge out of it as livable fragments. Sorry, would not even pass 6th grade science. 5. Usual plot of bad sibling wants to rule whatever is left of planet. 6. Rarely do you see IMDb give a rating below 5; this one met that rarity.

This animated film tells the story of a young monkey who lives in a secret fragment of a destroyed planet. He is trained by the two people who raised him, to combat the evil master of the universe. One day, he discovers the chance of prove himself and destroy the evil master of the universe.

"Spark: A Space Tail" is an adventure for young children, so I am not expecting much. What I'm impressed by is that they managed to get many big names to voice the characters. What I have not been so impressed by is the story, but then I'm not the target demographic that the film is aimed at. The animation is OK, but the characters are not as cute as I wished to see.

This is one rare find I found when searching for new movies.

Spark: A Space Tail is just a moderate movie to watch. It's not perfect like Zootopia or as great as The Bad Guys. It's just ok.

At least one of the real reasons why I wanted to watch that movie is because of that fox girl named Vix

I liked the premise of having a Sun Wukong in a space story. The story did not have an absolute tall tale to experience it.

As interesting as it sounds having Jason Norman who also played Henry Danger in his starring role in the movie was really good.

As for the movie, most of it is ok. The villain in the movie was just another goofball villain with an anticlimactic boss battle Zhong considering the fact obviously it was a show that felt out of budget just like the combat fighting scene.

I expected to have this movie to a ton of martial arts in space but this movie did not meet expectations. I hope they make a sequel with the martial arts added.

Being a huge lifelong animation buff, and always judging animated films as family films and as a young mature adult but a child at heart, 'Spark' could have been much more. Especially when considering the high calibre of vocal talent and that the concept was a decent one.

'Spark' is not an irredeemably awful animated film, there are a few things that make it a could-be-much-worse watch. One also cannot accuse 'Spark' of not trying, it's very low budget stuff but it isn't completely lazy. If anything actually 'Spark' tries too hard, and after watching personally was left feeling disappointed more than satisfied. Considering that people like Patrick Stewart and Susan Sarandon were involved one would naturally expect it to be better than it turned out to be.

The best thing about it is Stewart. The accent isn't great, sounding more Russian than Scottish, but of the voice cast Stewart is easily the liveliest of the bunch and the one who fits the most, the character fitting him like a glove. He does boast the odd amusing moment and conveys some dignity and gravitas. Jessica Biel also fares reasonably well, her voice is also a good fit and she brings a toughness and sassiness. There is the odd amusing moment, all with Stewart's Captain.

However, odd amusing moment is nowhere near enough. There are a lot of jokes and moments meant to be funny, but one knows there's something wrong when they're left stone-faced for most of them and few hit the mark. The space roaches were clearly meant to be comic relief scene stealers but ended up being completely pointless and annoying. 'Spark' injects a lot of references (the most recognisable being 'Star Wars') and Asian and Western genre ingredients that strives to be clever but ended up blatantly obvious and cheaply placed and random, not serving much of a purpose either.

There is a big problem with target audience and who it's aiming at. It tries to cater to both children and adults and sadly fails at both. Children will find that the jokes will go over their heads with them mainly being too young to understand them, they are likely also to have trouble following the story too (as a young adult who has seen her fair share of very layered films that do a lot and succeed that was one of 'Spark's' biggest issues). Adults on the other hand will find the opposite problem, they will get the jokes and the references but find them juvenile and dumbed down and dislike how they're placed.

Voice talent-wise, only Stewart and Biel come off successfully. The cast do their best but it was a case of too many of them not fitting their characters. Jace Norman (who is an older teenager himself but struggles to capture the attitude and mannerisms of a teenage character not that much younger) and Hilary Swank (voicing a character in need of dignity which Swank doesn't capture) are too bland and lightweight for their roles. On the other hand, Alan C. Peterson overdoes it and comes over as more hammy and over-the-top than menacing (some may argue that was the intent, but Zhong was never really a threat and was too exaggerated for a villain which didn't feel right within the film). Susan Sarandon, with her character's name guaranteed to induce groans, just sounded wrong, and everybody else has characters that lack personality or irritate which shows in their delivery.

When it comes to the animation, there is certainly far worse looking animation. It certainly isn't as cheap as the animation in the output of Video Brinquedo, Spark Plug Entertainment, the later 'Swan Princess' sequels or the ones for 'Alpha and Omega', or when it comes to traditional animation, the completely unnecessary sequels to animated masterpieces (like the one for 'The Secret of NIMH'), all of which showed a lack of effort. There's far better too, this is not intending to sound unfair but it does lack the finesse and polish of the best of Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks. A few decent colours here and there but a lot of it is blocky, flat and static with a distinct lack of imagination.

In terms of music, there is nothing memorable here and stylistically it doesn't gel. The characters, that are basically stock archetypes, are not engaging in personality and ones we don't get to know or care about with little growth to them. The story is very fragmented and a case of a lot of noise and throwing in as much as possible and no charm, spark or heart. The pace never fires on all cylinders (children and adults alike may find themselves looking at their watches), instead being very routine, and coherence is not a strong suit either, aside from the very heavy borrowing of better films (notably 'The Lion King') the story is unfathomable.

Dialogue is substandard and like the writers didn't bother to proof read what they wrote before having the script approved, some of the sentences don't even make sense and there is no substance to any of it.

Altogether, not a complete waste of time but tries too hard and suffers from feeling very bland, rushed-looking, muddled, routine, over-stuffed and with things (like a lot of the voices, music and particularly the references and genre tropes) not fitting. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Some people are far too critical for these movies created for children... I thought it was decent and the kids enjoyed it. That's all that matters.

What do we have in here : killed/missing father, single mum, tough female character (3 in this movie), wimp male character, teen who knows better... well All the ingredients of the media production controlled by globalist. You don't believe me? Just make the check list for your next animated movie.

Rating chart Voice acting 4 Animation 5 Characters 3 Moral 3 World/setting 2 Humor 3 Story 2 Acting 4 Songs/soundtrack 5 Overall: 31/100

In the world of animation, only 5 animation studios can exist and have critically acclaimed and commercially successful movies: Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Dreamworks Animation, Illumination Entertainment and Blue Sky Studios(well, they make box office success at the least.....). This means that any other animation studios, especially foreign ones will have to live at the bottom of the barrel and try to sweep up any money that they can. This doesn't stop some from trying their best, and Toonbox Entertainment finally succeeded at something with the surprising success of The Nut Job. With a sequel already in place for this year, they fill in the gap with their new movie: Spark: A Space Tail. I mean, it can't be as bad as it looks right?

Sadly, it is a bad movie. The animation looks good at times, but the rest feels motionless and looks very plasticy. The voice acting sounds so weird that you swear this is a foreign dub of a movie, like Rock Dog. The characters are a special type of characters that i like to call "That Character". We have "The Chosen One", "The Big Bad", "The Power Sidekick" and so so much more. Oh by the way there's a HUUUUGGGEEEEEEEEE monster that's literally the Kraken: no it's named the Kraken!

This looks to be a big disappointment to what could have been a game changer like Shrek or Toy Story, but now looks like a turd. I guess if there's one that they will gain after this release, they may just get a new lesson in how to make a movie. (*** out of **********, NOT INTERESTED)

My rating could be a little harsh, but, come on, if you have seen it, then you know the film lacks in everything. Firstly, the production was decent, especially for non-Disney, non-Pixar and even for non-Dreamworks and Sony, it is enough. The film was aimed for little kids, so keeping them in mind, it is a better film. Secondly, the characters and its designs were okay. But the story was merely the same dystopian theme. You know, dangerous visionary tries to destroy the planet and the years ago separated family finally unite and brings all the allies together to fight the villain. The end determines the fate of the great battle everyone involved in.

For me, it looked more like a television film. Or even better if it has been a television series. Because somewhat it reminds the recent 'Trollhunters'. A boy possesses the secret weapon and trains hard to fight the evil force. Each episodes with different action, adventure, it would have been a wonderful series. Anyway, despite the film failed to impress its viewers, I won't say it is that bad. Watchable film, but there's no fun, only for timepass. Even for the timepass, there are a lot better ones out there. So showing it for only young children might justify, since they can't differentiate between good and bad, except enjoying everything they see.

3/10

This Is Same As Space Chimps Even Though That Movie Is Boring, It's Very Plain Animation Is Below Average Story Is Boring Little Better Than Space Chimps 2 Boring As Space Chimps 1

Wow! This Is An Old Fashioned Animated Movie That Is A Total Catastrophe At The Box Office That Did Not Even Reach $1,000,000 And Getting Released In China Which Is Very Weird

Story: It's A Clone To Megmind(2010) & Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2, The Story Makes No Sense, How Can Spark Breathe In Space

Characters: Vix Is The Only Good Looking Character, Virtually The Rest Is Just Ugly Spark Is A Stupid Name For A Character

Animation: The Animation Look Like It Was From 2006 Instead Of 2016, Not Only That It's Ugly, And It Looked Like It Should Go Straight To DVD

Voice Acting: Not Too Bad Jace Norman As Spark Who Joins Henry Danger, There's Patrick Stewart Who I Don't Know And I Don't Know The Rest

My Suggestion: Skip This One It's A Bad Movie, It's Old Fashioned

1.3/4

This is a kid's movie, we adults want it to make sense to us! Of course from the astrophysics point of view this movie doesn't do a good job, but then Star Wars wouldn't make sense either. Kids enjoy watching this movie and if they are glued to the screen with their mouths half open, then they are enjoying it. Spark: A Space Tail has humor and action.

Adults, stop giving this movie a low point only because it doesn't entertain you.

... I had no words to say about Spark: A Space Tail.

2017 was a relatively horrible year for animation. Sure, there were gems such as Coco and indie favourites such as The Breadwinner, Loving Vincent and A Silent Voice, but there were a proportionally high number of bad animated movies to good animated movies that year.

If not for The Emoji Movie, I would have happily declare this as my worst animated movie of 2017. Here is why:

1. Very bad CGI in the movie. Animation is a pretty important part of every animated movie and this one sucked really hard. 2. The characters felt pointless and generic. Not even Spark himself had some unique personality that I can back on. 3. The story is just a blatant rip-off of so many movies, both animated and live-action. Ratchet and Clank, The Star Wars and so on, even Journey to the West. 4. The "soundtrack". Oh, don;t get me started on the soundtrack. While the animated movie soundtracks that year are pretty decent, this soundtrack is just plain awful and most "songs" are outright terrible and unrelated to the scenes that uses those "songs". It just makes the movie experience even worse (thankfully, this movie was not released in Singapore at that time, so I had to watch it online).

I had no good things to say about Spark, no matter how hard I tried. Avoid this animated cringefest at all cost, even if it is just for a bad animated movie night.

(Watched the movie online)

I personally thought the story was very well done. I was impressed with character of each of the characters. The designs of the characters was good, however the backgrounds in the movie for being CG were definitely on the low budget side, but everything else was really pretty top notch, especially with not having the financing available for other studios. The story was full of very well thought out comedy, not over the top, but quite funny. It was nice also to watch a kids movie that wasn't trying to slip in nasty jokes or situations that should never be in kids movies. There were a few transitions in the story that could have done with a little bit more filler to make the transitions smoother, maybe to due needing to get the movie released, or to make it fit within a certain time frame, or just not having unlimited resources to do more animating. Watch the movie with your kids or just know that it will be safe for your kids to watch on their own. I'm 50 and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, of course I never truly 'grew up' as I still like to watch all kinds of movies, even if they are cartoons.