The One and Only Ivan is a 2020 fantasy movie, based in the novel of the same name and is also based on the true life story of Ivan the Gorilla with of course some dramatisations.
This movie premiered on Disney+ and i wasn’t something that i particularly was going to watch but one day i had my niece Jazmin over and i decided to put it on as a background movie whilst she played around the house. However, as soon as i put it on and she saw the animals she sat herself down on my sofa and watched it from start to finish without taking her eyes away from it (She is just short of 2 years old) and i found myself also pretty entertained by it, which came as a surprise as it wasn’t something i was initially going to review, hence the delay since release.
So the plot follows Ivan, a silverback Gorilla that is the star of the show in a mini-mall circus, along with other animals who also perform at the show. However Ivan is more than an average gorilla as he has the exceptional ability to draw. Now as far as the movie goes the best part of the movie is Ivan performed by Sam Rockwell. Rockwell does an amazing job as the soft spoken and gentle Ivan and gives much more of emotional and stronger performance than the human characters. Now i’m not sure whether this was done purposely as obviously he’s the main character or whether human characters were just written poorly with the exception of maybe the little girl Julia (Ariana Greenblatt). But Ivan and a few other Animals felt more human than the human characters themselves Other great performances include, Angelina Jolie and Brooklyn Prince as the Elephants Stella and Ruby respectively they were easily the best performances other than Rockwell as Ivan and Danny Devito provided so good comic relief as Bob the dog.
The film was really a good watch from an adult perspective and doesn’t follow the usual trope of “it’s a kids film so it has to be as silly and mind numbing as possible” it actually has a lot of weight and emotion that adult viewers can appreciate and even tear up a little at the subject matter. The movie poses a message of just because you keep the Animals safe and Alive doesn’t mean that it isn’t cruel and adults will understand this an example is Bryan Cranston’s character, he may appear to children as a goofy ring announcer who is secretly balding to the adult viewer who understands the subject matter properly he is the ‘villain’ despite being a caring and nice person.
As mentioned above the movie is a children’s movie but it’s one that adults can enjoy for the story which really young children might not understand the whole meat of it, however colourful imagery and some goofy jokes is enough to keep any child watching, and if that’s not enough the spectacular CGI will have any child in awe as it would convince them the animals and their on screen actions are nothing short of real.
Final Score.
Title: Great
The One And Only Ivan is a fun and emotional watch with some amazing CGI and is a movie that gives younger children something colourful and fun to look whilst also giving an emotionally weighty story that older viewers can enjoy. It also tackles the tough subject of animal captivity without upsetting the demographic it is mainly aimed at.
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