Introduction
Hello, fellow adventurers! After a few weeks of rest, including a scare from a recent bad spell of shingles and my recent wisdom tooth surgery, I am back and fully recovered from my sickness (although the pain from my wisdom tooth surgery still lingers), so now, we venture forward to check out another movie from my 2024 Non-Mainstream and Foreign CG Animated Movies Watchlist, The Inseparables!
Directed by long-time nWave Studios (formerly nWave Pictures) veteran Jeremie Degruson (in his first solo directing role and his fourth directing role for an nWave movie), co-written by the Cal Brunker and Bob Barlen (aka Brunker-Barlen), who had previously directed the two Son of Bigfoot movies for nWave as well as last year’s Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie, and based on the script by Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolov, two of the writers from the legendary Toy Story movie, The Inseparables is an animated adventure centring around a wooden puppet, stuck to a role as The Fool but who also has an imaginative mind, venturing out of the puppet house to live his life as an imaginary knight. As he teamed up with an abandoned rapping dog soft toy, they set off for their epic adventure across New York City’s Central Park.
Considering this is the 10th animated movie produced by nWave Studios, an animation studio I gave pretty much too much respect for as one of the more successful European CG animation studios (see my special review of 2010’s A Turtle’s Tale as proof), it needs to be something special to stand out from even nWave’s previous catalogue. As the overall quality of foreign CG animated movies gets better, those movies also need to stand out even more from the crowded pack of so many foreign CG animated movies. Plus, this is coming off arguably nWave’s most critically and commercially successful movie with 2022’s Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness (with a sequel slated for next year), so already, this movie has a lot of weight on its shoulders to carry on nWave’s shoulders even before I cover this movie.
So, how will nWave’s 10th animated movie fare? Well, time to use our imagination then because this adventure is now underway!
Key Information
- Director: Jeremie Degruson
- Animation Studio: nWave Studios
- Country of Origin: Belgium
- Rating: PG
- Release Date: 20 December 2023 (in Belgium)
Trailer
The Review
Story and Characters
I am going to make a confession: while I enjoyed talking about nWave Studios’ previous movies, the one element that I tend to dread while reviewing them is the overall writing quality. If you had seen my special review of A Turtle’s Tale, I had discussed about how much of a letdown the writing in most nWave movies are, even with their better movies. This is because while nWave’s animation (more about it later) is on average better than the animation from most European CG animated movies (and even some outside of Europe) and can even match some of the mainstream animated movies, the writing leaves a lot to be desired as its writing quality is on a similar level of most European CG animated movies, which is disappointing.
Having covered a good number of their movies, I can see the progression in the writing quality and concept in their most recent movie, Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness. While I saw improved writing in The Inseparables as well, I personally think the writing in that movie was slightly worse than the writing Chickenhare personally.
First off, I personally like the concept Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolov provided for this movie. Yes, the concept has similar, if not too similar, story undertones to Toy Story which I am not complaining much. I am, however, more intrigued about how this movie managed to keep me captivated at the script even though I had seen similar scripts before. This is because while it being around 90 minutes is not enough to explore enough of the concept (which is quite a good load to cover), the pacing is solid enough such that it did not slow down too much for me to lose interest in the story.
However, as mentioned in the earlier paragraph, given its concept surrounding puppets as well as living in Don’s imagination, I just feel this movie could have expanded this movie’s concept further by provided 10 to 20 more minutes of additional content to just expand some elements further. I know that the runtime for The Inseparables is similar to Chickenhare’s, and I feel that is now an issue for both movies because they would have benefited with slightly longer running times. Still, I just feel Chickenhare covered their bases more than The Inseparables.
I also like to feel that for a script written by the Brunker-Barlen duo, I am pleasantly surprised to see less of the immature and on-the-nose jokes, and toilet humour that is quite common in the two Paw Patrol movies, as well as the two Son of Bigfoot movies that they also contribute for nWave in the past, which do not decrease the writing quality of this movie. Yes, it does not have much sharp humour, but at least the jokes provided do not cheapen the movie quality.
Talking about the characters, there is a fair bit to talk about them as well. Don (voiced by Dakota West), the foolish puppet dreaming of becoming a noble knight (and imagining himself as one), can be annoying and self-centred at first, but his character softens (pun intended) once he teamed up with DJ Doggy Dog (Jordan Baird), an abandoned soft toy rapping dog (cue the joke from Titanic: The Legend Goes On) in search of a new family. I honestly think their chemistry is cute and somewhat believable even if we know the Toy Story beat all over again which can be slightly annoying but not enough to derail the whole experience, but I just wish the movie gave the other characters, such as Dee (Monica Young) and Alfonso (Donte Paris), two more puppets that played a part in Don’s story, more time to shine because even as supporting characters, they would have added more flair into this movie considering their prominence in the movie.
I am also not sure whether the two pickpocket villains who steal away the puppets are necessary since I just feel they do not need to be included to help bring forth the movie’s messaging, and the somewhat anticlimactic climax scene before the ending. I do also feel that the voice acting is a bit rough on the edges and some polishing is needed, which is a shame considering I had watched some of the French trailers and clips of this movie, and the French voice acting just sounded much better.
Overall, while there were some of the usual issues regarding the writing and characters in this movie, there were more than enough bright spots within these elements to make up for its shortcomings and puts it above even the likes of Son of Bigfoot if we were to talk about nWave’s previous movies, even if I just feel that the writing in Chickenhare is better.
Animation
If there is one European CG animation studio I can trust when it comes to overall animation quality, it has to be nWave, and once again, they delivered with the animation in The Inseparables.
I had covered movies from this studio before, but I got to say, The Inseparables is the most different-looking movie they had done. While nWave focused on photorealistic CG animation in most of their previous movies (and one of the very few animation studios that stick to that style while other studios had moved on to a more stylised CG approach), in this movie, they went for an opposite direction and go for a more stylised CG approach, especially during Don’s imagination sequences where nWave goes hard on a 2D style.
I wanted to talk specifically about the imagination sequences first because when I saw those scenes first hand, I was like “Wait, nWave did this?”. I was honestly at a disbelief because this is the first time that nWave went with this stylised approach, and I am loving this new identity from them! The colouring in those sequences pop and the sequences look seamless, which is helped because this 2D styling accentuates the imagination sequences further. I just love this new look and I hope nWave continued to experiment with more animation styles in future movies beyond their repertoire.
Going back to the other scenes in this movie, the texturing in most of the non-human characters (who are much more prominent than the human characters) are just on point, especially with the puppets which have this vintage, wooden feeling. I also noticed that for DJ Doggy Dog, he moves differently from the puppets and other characters in this movie which I appreciate considering he is a soft toy with a battery-operated voice recorder.
I also wanted to talk about the background animation, especially with the nighttime backgrounds, because man, the composition shots in the backgrounds just look gorgeous! I mean, sure, it is New York City’s Central Park we are talking about, but the backgrounds are just well-detailed and not too out-of-focus which further upheld the overall higher than average quality animation for European CG animation standards.
I honestly had not much to complain about the animation quality in The Inseparables, just like with Chickenhare. For a small animation studio based in Belgium on a budget of around US$20 million, I do feel that the overall animation quality just looks 1.5 to 2 times better than the budget itself, which I cannot say for most European CG animated movies where the animation quality for those movies are about as much as the budgets given for those movies. There is honestly something about nWave’s animation style that just feel slightly more premium compared to similar foreign CG animated movies which already puts it above most foreign CG animated movies anyway.
Soundtrack, Other Elements and Level of Enjoyment
Like in some of nWave’s previous movies, Belgian band Puggy returned to compose the soundtrack and contributed their cover of “Where is My Mind” into the soundtrack. After listening to the soundtrack, it is one of the better soundtracks from them, and I am pretty happy they performed restraint and just focus on producing a good quality soundtrack.
I also wanted to highlight one other issue I had with The Inseparables, and that has nothing to do with the movie itself. You see, nWave has previously released their animated movies promptly in major animation markets such as in Europe and Asia, but this time, I do not know what’s with Octopolis (nWave’s reliable distributor), but somehow, even though this movie had already released in the late 2023, there is still no release date in most Asian countries. This is strange because nWave had previously found success in their movies in Asia, especially here in Singapore where I highlighted the surprise box office success of Chickenhare. Honestly, I do not know why this movie had not been released for so long in most Asian countries, your guess is as good as mine.
Still, for my level of enjoyment, I am honestly very happy with the movie in overall, especially coming from one of the more successful European CG animation studios out there. I still prefer Chickenhare over this one, but I honestly feel that the margins between both Chickenhare and The Inseparables is quite close, I will admit. The Inseparables is just a feel-good movie that hits the right notes when needed and it simply felt unique compared to their previous movies, so yeah, it definitely stood out for me.
Conclusion
I have to agree that most foreign CG animated movies in Europe tend to be similar both in terms of concept and in overall quality, which is why they tend to have a negative perception. That said, there are a few European CG animation studios that not only produce good quality animated movies on a regular basis, but are able to improve on their overall quality from time to time, and nWave Studios, with their 10th animated movie, is one of those studios and why it’s a treat to cover their movies.
The Inseparables is perhaps the most different looking nWave Studios movie and while there are a few rough patches to take note, particularly the mis-opportunities to bring the concept and story forward and the concept may feel a bit too similar to other animated movies, but most of the risks nWave took in this movie paid off. The animation is once again top-notch for foreign CG animated movie standards with shockingly great composition of backgrounds and characters, unique animation styles not seen in nWave’s previous movies before Chickenhare and is just an overall great all-rounder animated movie from start to finish that the family audience will likely have fun with.
I may be a bit biased towards this Belgian studio, but considering how difficult it is to find great quality foreign CG animated movies from the vast sea filled with so many foreign CG animated movies, nWave does know how to stand out well among other foreign CG animated movies, especially those from its home continent of Europe. I am really curious to see how nWave will follow that up with their upcoming Chickenhare sequel, Chickenhare and the Very Very (Very) Old Groundhog, next year.
Thank you so much for joining me on this adventure. When we come back, why don’t we take a break from reviewing animated movies while I discuss something that feels like a worrying trend in non-mainstream animated movies that I need to address, before we get back to exploring more animated movies from all around the world. Until next time, see you on the next adventure!
Blaziker’s Hot Sauce Rating
