ANI-MOVIES, *Ernest & Celestine

Having nothing to do with Jim Varney, Ernest And Celestine is a Belgium/French independent animated feature-length production based on the children's book series by Gabreille Vincent. Premiering in 2012, the film managed to keep the spirit of Vincent's original illustrations while tweaking the character designs just enough to give it a slightly more anthropomorphic look. Most of the original directors previously worked on stop-motion pictures, so to have this 2D movie featuring watercolor animation done in flash gives it a distinct style. The movie was triumphant enough to be nominated for the Best Animated Oscar, only to lose to the indomitable Frozen. It also got a 52-episode TV series and a theatrical sequel. GKIDS provided an astounding roster for the English dub including Forest Whitaker, Lauren Bacall, Paul Giamatti, William H. Macy, and Jeffrey Wright which make for a catchy viewing experience. The film is slightly hampered by a short running time of 80 minutes, but considering it's based on a series of short stories the writers did manage to entrance the plot into a full-length plot.

Ernest is a lonely bear living in his solitary house in the woods away from the European town of bears which happens to have a civilization of mice underneath it. The mice have a racket going where they send the younger ones up to the surface to collect teeth from bear children acting as their version of the Tooth Fairy, which the mice use for either replacing their own teeth or for further construction of their subterranean facility. Celestine is an orphan mouse who isn't very lucky at getting teeth to earn her daily keep, so she talks Ernest into helping her rob a dentist with a stock of spare teeth. The two get in trouble with both the bear and mouse authorities and have to go on the lam to Ernest's house where the two of them become good friends and spend the winter together. Once spring comes, the bear police show up and arrest Celestine while the mice arrest Ernest. Oddly enough, both of the guilty parties manage to save the lives of the judges assigned to sentence them and end up going free to live together in harmony, even though there's still a large amount of classism between the neighboring animal societies.

Many will notice similarities between this film and Zootopia where talking animals coexist but in segregated areas. Even though the main characters are ultimately fugitives, they do grow to like each other for their creativity and make up for their mistakes thanks to a double-edged twist of fate. Ernest And Celestine is a delightful movie that is firmly family friendly that older audiences will find heartfully charming while it gives a fairly obvious salute to classic cartoon antics and a vignette that is a loving homage to Fantasia.