The Peanuts Movie Review

Making a Right Charlie of Himself

The Peanuts Movie

Director: Steve Martino

Voices: Noah Schnapp, Rebecca Bloom, Anastasia Bredikhina

Peanuts is of course Charles Schultz’s much-loved newspaper strip starring kid Charlie Brown, his dog Snoopy and his group of friends, which ran for a record-breaking fifty years until the death of Schultz in 2000. Peanuts has come to animation before, back in the late 1960s (EDIT: thanks to eagle-eyed reader Gary Leach) and into the 1980s and people were concerned as to whether this latest animated feature would capture the essence and heart of Schultz’s strip. Luckily thanks to the involvement of Schulz’s son and grandson Craig and Bryan respectively and the approach that Blue Sky have taken here, The Peanuts Movie is a worthy addition to the Peanuts canon.

The animators have used modern CGI animation techniques to bring Charlie Brown and Co to life but there is a painterly, illustrative feel at work here that makes it seem like a spiritual successor to Charles Schulz. On the voice front, the filmmakers have cast very cannily and Snoopy is used in much the same way he was in the strips. For those adults who have always loved Peanuts, The Peanuts Movie is a well-made love letter to Schulz and there is enough here that it will appeal to kids of today too. It has already made over $125m in the US alone to date (the UK is getting it later than North America) and it proves just how timeless Charlie Brown, Patty and the rest of the gang are. The Peanuts Movie is a great kid’s film…

JOEL MEADOWS