Orion and the Dark (2024)
Hello Darkness, my new friend.
Tonight’s movie is a stand in because some plans changed - but it is one that’s been on my list since i saw the trailer. Charming, I would call the animation - and that’s really all it takes to sell me on a movie sometimes. A family flick that promises some classic family flick stuff with a nice art style isn’t exactly the rarest of movies - but that doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad or not worth watching, so let’s settle in and see what this bedtime story has to tell us about - tonight we watch Orion and the Dark.
Our story is actually a story - or perhaps a series of stories. The entire movie is essentially one big take on overcoming your fears. In this case, it’s through the eyes of a kid whose absolutely afraid of everything. How do we know this? Well, thanks to his handy little help book, we get to see a sample of the wide selection of options available - from murder clowns to bees, childhood bullies and romance. On par with plenty of these is his fear of the dark, which after one night of yelling at the top of his lungs about how much he hates it, dark gets a little fed up. Appearing before the boy, he manages to convince the boy that it’s time to go on an adventure to try and solve some of that, and prove that he isn’t something that everyone needs to hate and be afraid of because he’s actually a nice guy. Thing is - taking a kid whose afraid of everything on a mystical adventure to meet up with your fellow night entities might not work out all that great for anyone.
The actors do a good job here. Yeah, they don’t have any body language of their own to use given it’s all animated, but the voices get a good amount of feeling to them and the deliveries back and forth bounce pretty well off of each other. Everyone has their own little thing going on, and you only ever had a hard time hearing one of them - except that’s totally intentional. Nothing really to complain about here - and a lot of the animations help to accentuate things in a cartoonish way - specifically with the face expressions.
As far as characters go it’s not too crazy deep for most of them. It’s a family movie, which doesn’t stop it from having things to talk about - but it keeps things at a moderate level of complications. Funnily enough, it actually even calls out how parents often like to super-simplify stories to make them easier, while in turn making them a little less believable than if it was just the truth. Still, each character at least gets an angle to have more to them than just face value - the whole two sides of every coin. This allows the story itself to feel like it evolves instead of just the characters - although the main still has their whole arc to go through anyways.
The main character.
Visually it’s a good time. It has a very story book, claymation sort of vibe to it, and it’s what initially dragged me in to it. This provides both something to differentiate it somewhat, and also gets to pull up some visual gags later on. It’s pretty clean, while also having a little bit of a feel of hand-made. In particular, I like how things like the wood of the bed frame at times look like it’s made of cardboard, or just the texture that the style makes everything have from pants to furniture. I feel that perhaps some will find this the best part of the movie - it’s colorful where it needs to be, dark when it wants to be, and overall strikes a good balance of lively without being too overbearing.
It’s also pretty imaginative with how it does things. This comes into play the most when you get to the other night spirits, because things get real fantastical. The spirit designs are fun and varied enough, but the things they do also get pretty interesting. The tiny little fluffball Quiet sucking up the little squiggles of sound to make things silent, or sleep pulling random things out to make people fall asleep - like a pillow or a hammer. The more wacky elements help bring some fun in, but also to just plain make things more interesting to watch as well. The settings get a nice variety from all over the place, including a few dream worlds. Visually, there really isn’t much to not like about this movie, looks to animations it’s all well done.
Sound does fine. Balance is good, music helps with the atmosphere. Line deliveries are well done, and it all ends up feeling appropriate to the movie your watching. The learning side of things of course exists because it’s a family flick. It’s pretty straight forward - learning about how to deal with fear. Through that you’ve got all the other fun side jaunts, such as bonding, friendship, miscommunication, and just everyday existing as a kid. It’s plenty for the thinking types, and nothing so serious that you can’t watch it with the family as intended.
Can’t get better than a sleep hammer.
It’s a fun movie. I had a good time with it, and honestly it ended up being much like I expected it to be. There’s some jokes, some serious stuff, and a whole lot of visual fun and imagination. It’s the kind of movie that’s simple enough that most the family should enjoy it and follow it, but it’s not so painfully simple that you hate watching it as an older person. I’m sure you’ll probably hit that crowd in the middle that’s “too cool” to enjoy the movie for what it is, but what it is is a nice, colorful and legit romp through what it is to deal with fear.