BILAL: A NEW BREED OF HERO – Review

Review by Cary Michael Paller

BILAL: A NEW BREED OF HERO is the story of an everyman who learns his place in the world while the learning that the world is not a nice place to be in at times. Bilal is a slave who leans to overcome is limitations to become the warrior he has always wanted to be. Sometimes when you are watching a movie you sit from beginning to end hoping the film will reach past the expectations you have for it. Some can reach and exceed that, like most Pixar films, others like BILAL: A NEW BREED OF HERO do not come close. I am still asking myself what Bilal wanted to be the hero of? Like I said of STAR WARS: The Last Jedi. There has to be plot points to drive the story forward. Without them you have a series of events with no driving force behind them.

The story itself is ho hum in a very been there done that formula. Especially when it comes to biblical epics. It never touches any new ground besides that is seemed to aimed at an older audience. I could imagine watching this with a theater full of children and most if not all of them wondering what the heck is going, falling asleep or running back and forth up the aisle bored. Kids need to be engaged. Placing animation in front of them is not engaging them.

What was special about the film was the wonderful animation. When the first shot came up on screen I would have swore it was a live action movie I was going to be watching. The attention to detail and depth of field were fantastic on every front. The great close ups leading into wide shots kept the detail in place and did not ever waver throughout the film. Then the wheels sort of fell off. I am sure that the budget was no where near a Disney/Pixar film and without a doubt it was evident in the animation and movement of the characters themselves. They all moved like they were in a stop motion, claymation film. Add to the fact that none of the character models had any real facial expression that was original to that character. Everything just looked the same which was undefined and lacking any real human characterization. Combine that with a formulaic story and you have a film that will not be able to hold an audiences attention. That includes the adults that it seemed to directed at.

3 of 5 Stars