Movie Review: The Peanuts Movie

3 stars out of 5

I’ve devoted an awful lot of my life to Peanuts. As long as I can remember, we had a Happiness Is a Warm Puppy book at home. And then of course I was a devoted comics-section reader, so there was Peanuts every day, and the TV specials. Also as a kid, I read the Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz biography. In 1991, at age 22, I clipped out a Peanuts strip and have kept it with me ever since. When Schulz announced his retirement at the end of 1999, I doubled down. I bought the Peanuts 2000 collection of the final year’s strips. In 2004, I began reading Fantagraphics’ loving reprints of the entire series, a 12.5-year process. (I’m a volume behind right now, but will catch up over the holidays.) And in 2008, I read David Michaelis’s definitive biography.

So sure, I was excited about a Peanuts movie.

Excited and nervous. Because people are always ruining shit. “Modernizing.” Or often just missing the point.

I’m happy to report that The Peanuts Movie doesn’t disgrace the franchise. It’s a enjoyable-enough film that the family can watch together. There are no fart jokes or rapping chipmunks. Us older folks can say, “Oh there’s that character” and feel nostalgic. Young kids may be inspired to dig deeper into Peanuts lore, and that’s a good thing.

But you don’t really get much more than that, which is a shame.

Let’s start with the positives, though. The Peanuts Movie stays true to the environment we’re accustomed to, of rotary phones and manual typewriters and Vince Guaraldi piano music. There are a couple of “modern” songs but they don’t distract too much. Because movies need lots of characters, we get some minor, semi-forgotten individuals from the Peanuts universe: Violet, Patty, and Shermy. And the film looks good — it has a nice, clean, bright appearance. The only really troubling visual is Linus’s hair — it was never meant to be seen in 3-D.

Now, there are ultimately two Peanuts. From reading the strips, and Michaelis’s biography, it’s clear that Schulz was a dark, dark motherf’er. Charlie Brown can’t win. And that is the true brilliance of Peanuts, and why it lasted half a century. Life is rotten and Schulz understood that. Ah, but then there was the promotional Peanuts. Games and toys and dolls and advertisements etc. etc. etc. And if you’re trying to get the average person to part with their hard-earned money, depression is not the way to go. So we got a kinder, gentler Charlie Brown.

The movie certainly leans in that direction. Bad things happen to Charlie, but he bust out a stupid smile afterwards. Everything’s OK!

There are plot problems too. Way too much time is devoted to a repetitive Snoopy vs. The Red Baron subplot. This feels manipulative: It’s a 3-D movie so we’ll show zooming planes every chance we get. In the main plot — Charlie Brown pursuing the Little Red-Haired Girl — there is a weird, clumsy jump from winter to the last day of school. (Oh, and all the kids are in the same class, which doesn’t make sense, because they’re different ages.)

Then there’s the climax. Without giving any spoilers, Schulz would have never, ever written it this way. So, when all was said and done, I was disappointed with The Peanuts Movie. Of course, Charlie Brown is the patron saint of disappointment, so maybe that was there point all along?