Free Jimmy (2006)

This movie is great. The style of the realistic urban visual of the movie is really enjoyable. It works perfectly with the amusing yet touching plot. Introducing the different plots, of those 3 groups of interessants that are trying to save Jimmy, interlaced, really gives you a cynical hyper-realistic view on hypocrisy, greed and apathy. I think in this movie they really succeeds in getting through the Different types of people. The green gang with their never-ending arguments, The Drugs gang that will take advantage of each other very freely, and even in some ways those weird Lapish Maphia people seem credible.In short, if you like the beauty of ugly things, Go and watch this Movie!

I have to admit I needed about 15 minutes to get used to the style of this animation. I like that for a change we get to see something different than your average Pixar happy ending movies (which is also nice, but it needed balancing out).It reminds me a little of the short movie "Fallen Art" which to me is brilliant. To draw a comparison with Pixar: Pixar always succeeds in getting the audience to love or hate their characters and feel for them. This team did a good job with Jimmy and I just want to adopt him. For me that makes a good movie. The movies contains a bit of humor (however black it may be) and it makes this entertaining if you take to time to get past the first 15 minutes. Like the graphics and characters set up.

Actually I was expecting quite something of this movie. The story of a junkie-elephant, militant animal rights people and several edgy characters making fun of several groups sounded promising. The animation sure is great but it lacks in one thing which drags the whole movie down along with its slow pacing, lack of real jokes and totally unclear direction. The characters just down get to you... they are nicely down but there is no aura except for the voicing maybe. You just watch puppets walk around being stereotypes, trying to be politically incorrect here and there and basically thats it. After a real long time the movie ends and Jimmy who could have been a nice cartoon-character is nothing but a nice modeled polygon-mesh. The mix of making fun of drugs and then switching to a halfhearted thing right the other direction makes the movie even worse. I was really annoyed sitting through this seemingly endless movie and I'd rather watch a politically correct Pixar-Movie since at least they got consistent storytelling and catchy characters.

I had never even heard of this film before I watched it, and I must say, I understand why the movie wasn't hyped here in the Netherlands. It is an extremely bad movie. The occasions where I actually laughed at a joke were extremely rare. I have heard that a lot of the jokes were especially targeted at the Scandinavian audience, but I do not recall hearing any jokes which I did not get (although perhaps some words may have several meanings in the Norwegian version). The only reason I gave this movie two stars rather than one (as 0 is not a possibility) is because the animation was actually really well done (although the character models were a little too over the top in my opinion). I strongly recommend people who have not yet seen this movie, to keep it that way. I honestly feel that the time I spend watching this film was completely wasted. Too few laughs, Flat story and immature comedy make this movie, which in essence could've been entertaining, in to a complete failure.