Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Film Review - Paper Planes (2015)

Paper Planes is an Australian production and stars Ed Oxenbould as Dylan a young boy living in country NSW with his father (Sam Worthington) and who lost his Mum in a car crash but one day at school a man comes to show his class how to make a Paper Plane and it promises to be a brand new journey for this country boy.

I went into Paper Planes fairly keen mainly because I liked the trailer but one thing I noticed was that one of the companies involved with this movie was the Australian Children's Television Foundation who were also responsible for the ABC TV series Lift Off in the early 90s so their involvement seemed to seal the deal for me, could it soar with mighty wings or crash down to Earth like many of the Paper Planes we all made as kids?

Well actually it does soar as this is a charming little family film and I enjoyed it more than I did Big Hero 6 and the Penguins of Madagascar and the reason that is the case is because I felt that this felt more complete as a film as well as having the balance right between the heart and the humour which some American family productions sometimes miss the mark on.

The film also has some likeable characters at its core especially Dylan who is likeable, charming and very resourceful and Oxenbould does a very good job here, Worthington is serviceable and probably the most enjoyable he's been since Avatar and even Deborah Mailman joins in on the fun so you can't complain.

And after seeing the Japanese in Unbroken treated as cliches we've seen before it was very refreshing to see them given a much more respectful treatment in this movie and also I love that Sam's character had old VHS tapes still around, that part made me smile quite a bit.

So all in all Paper Planes is good fun and well worth seeing, 3 and a half out of 5.

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