The Story:
When it comes to the story, I will say that, in concept, there is some potential. You see, the film's core idea is what if dreams were movie productions, where it could possibly present all the many ways different people think through looking at their dreams. This idea does have some promise, and there are some minor instances of it being utilised in previous works, most notably Inside Out, where the idea serves as a small plot point. However, there is a problem where maybe it has a decent concept, but the story doesn't care about expanding it.
Instead, it would rather focus on this girl named Minna who's trying to cope with her new stepfamily, specifically her stepsister Jenny, who acts mean towards her. Maybe it would've worked if actual care was put into it, but the problem is that this plot is filled with cliches that make it highly predictable and leaves very little surprises to be found, feeling like the writing has no semblance of originality. On top of that, the film has horrible pacing, as it always feels so slow to watch, and with the plot being so predictable, it becomes hard to get engaged with.
However, if you think that's bad, you should see the comedy, as every joke the movie fails so badly, where the main brand of humour consists of either something stupid happening or painful references to social media, and not only are they abysmal, but all they do is just make the audience cringe. But if all that wasn't terrible enough, then this is when the film's biggest issue comes in, and that is its tone. You see, this film really emphasises the family drama in hopes of engaging audiences, but instead, it makes the entire feature an unpleasant slog to get through, and just leaves you miserable and empty after watching it.
Whilst the story did have some solid concepts at first, it just didn't do much with said concepts, and instead, the viewer is just left with a horrible mess of a story, with a predictable plot, sluggish pacing, cringe-inducing jokes and an overall unpleasant tone that plagues the entire movie, and thus, all that potential is wasted on a story that just gives its audience a miserable experience.
The Animation: Sure, the story is just an unpleasant hot mess, but maybe some solid animation could subside some of the pain from watching this, right? That would be nice, that is if it actually had animation that was even halfway decent. Okay, I won't beat around the bush here, this is not a good-looking movie. Maybe not the worst film in terms of visuals, but it's certainly far from being great. Now, when it comes to the character designs, I'd say that they have mixed results, as some characters do look okay, whilst others look kinda awkward. Next, we have the backgrounds, which I admit aren't half bad, although most of them aren't anything new, aside from maybe some of the dream-based locations.
Then we have the rendering, and this is when the animation shows just how weak it looks, as practically nothing looks natural and instead, everything comes off as so fake and artificial, that it becomes almost laughable to look at. I mean, seriously, I've seen ads for mobile games that looked 10 times more competent than this. However, probably the worst element of the animation is the character animation, because of how the movements feel so clunky and robotic, to the point where the characters seem more like animatronics than real people, and that's not mentioning the awful lip-syncing, where it's practically impossible to find lip movements that match the equally awful dialogue.
I don't know the reason why the film looks this bad, maybe they had a really low budget, maybe the animators didn't know what to do, or maybe the people working on this just didn't care. But at the end of the day, the animation is bad to an almost laughable degree, and nothing can really convince me otherwise, especially when everything presented visually looks either unimpressive, awkward, artificial or just all around cheap.
The Characters: Now, I have a small question for you. When the story is just absolutely unpleasant to go through and the animation looks so cheap and artificial that it's hard to take seriously, do you really think that the filmmakers would put any care into the characters? Of course not, because not only are the characters very poorly-written, but some actually cause problems that make the film so unpleasant to go through.
First, there's the main protagonist Minna, who's struggling with adapting to the arrival of her new stepfamily, more specifically her stepsister Jenny. And whilst the film tries to excuse her attitude by showing that her mother left her and her father to pursue her singing career, with the complete lack of care put onto the writing, it ends up backfiring, as she instead comes off as a selfish brat who desires to receive all her father's attention, especially near the third act, where everything bad that happened there is because of her jealousy. Sure, this was probably intentional, and she becomes much kinder later on, but it happens way too late into the film to actually fix her earlier selfishness and mean-spirited nature, especially when said nature adds more into the feature's miserable tone.
Next, we have the stepsister Jenny, who is equally as hateable as Minna due to the fact that she is absolutely annoying, especially when she has many jokes about how self-absorbed she is and her social media obsession, which, as I stated before, are anything but funny and feel more cringe-worthy. Not only that, but she also shares many similar flaws with Minna despite their mutual hate, such as becoming more nicer too late into the film to feel redemptive in any way and her selfish nature adding into making the movie as unpleasantly miserable as it is. Now, for the other characters, they fit into one of three categories, none of which are that positive, where they can be left with too little screen time to actually leave an impact on the audience, such as the Inspector and the new stepmother Helene, feel pretty much pointless, like the pet hamster Viggo, or suffer from one negative trait that is just there to help the story progress with its terribly predictable plot, like the pathetically cowardly Dreambuilder Gaff or Minna's annoyingly dumb father John.
However, another element I want to talk about due to its effect on the entire film is how the voice acting is just embarrassingly awful, as it feels like all of the voice actors were way more invested in their paycheck than their performances and thus, they put in no effort into their acting where they all either sound completely bored out of their minds or obnoxiously over-the-top to the point of making the characters feel somehow even worse than they already are. And it doesn't help that the dialogue the actors have to read out is equally as abysmal. In a simple way, the characters serve as the core of the movie, and thus, that means that their atrocious personalities, all topped off with some horrible voice acting, are responsible for making everything in this movie as painful and unpleasant to watch as it is.
Wow, that was one of the most unpleasant animated features I've ever had the misfortune of watching. Upon fully revisiting this movie after so long, I can comfortably say that Dreambuilders is, in my opinion, not only a great contender for one of the worst animated films I've ever seen, but also among my least favourite animated features, where the movie just feels riddled with so many problems that it becomes impossible to watch without feeling unsatisfied. Sure, it had some promise with its concept, but in the end, all that's really presented is an absolute mess of an animated film, with a story that's predictable from top to bottom, an awful sense of pacing, embarrassingly cheap animation that makes the movie look almost laughable, an unlikable cast of characters that feel either pointless or despicable, horrendous voice acting that makes the abysmal characters even worse, atrocious and cringe-inducing comedy that never once gets a laugh and an unpleasantly miserable tone that covers the overall feature and just leaves a bad taste by giving nothing more than an experience that is downright excruciating to even simply remember!
Now, if it was too subtle to figure out, my recommendation is that you should just stay away from this as much as you humanly can, because if you end up watching it, all you'll be left with afterwards is a despicable mess of an animated film, a sense of regret and an overall feeling of emptiness and sorrow just like I had gotten once it finished! Maybe its concept may have seemed like a dream come true, but the end result is just a completely insufferable nightmare!
Instead, it would rather focus on this girl named Minna who's trying to cope with her new stepfamily, specifically her stepsister Jenny, who acts mean towards her. Maybe it would've worked if actual care was put into it, but the problem is that this plot is filled with cliches that make it highly predictable and leaves very little surprises to be found, feeling like the writing has no semblance of originality. On top of that, the film has horrible pacing, as it always feels so slow to watch, and with the plot being so predictable, it becomes hard to get engaged with.
However, if you think that's bad, you should see the comedy, as every joke the movie fails so badly, where the main brand of humour consists of either something stupid happening or painful references to social media, and not only are they abysmal, but all they do is just make the audience cringe. But if all that wasn't terrible enough, then this is when the film's biggest issue comes in, and that is its tone. You see, this film really emphasises the family drama in hopes of engaging audiences, but instead, it makes the entire feature an unpleasant slog to get through, and just leaves you miserable and empty after watching it.
Whilst the story did have some solid concepts at first, it just didn't do much with said concepts, and instead, the viewer is just left with a horrible mess of a story, with a predictable plot, sluggish pacing, cringe-inducing jokes and an overall unpleasant tone that plagues the entire movie, and thus, all that potential is wasted on a story that just gives its audience a miserable experience.
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The Animation: Sure, the story is just an unpleasant hot mess, but maybe some solid animation could subside some of the pain from watching this, right? That would be nice, that is if it actually had animation that was even halfway decent. Okay, I won't beat around the bush here, this is not a good-looking movie. Maybe not the worst film in terms of visuals, but it's certainly far from being great. Now, when it comes to the character designs, I'd say that they have mixed results, as some characters do look okay, whilst others look kinda awkward. Next, we have the backgrounds, which I admit aren't half bad, although most of them aren't anything new, aside from maybe some of the dream-based locations.
Then we have the rendering, and this is when the animation shows just how weak it looks, as practically nothing looks natural and instead, everything comes off as so fake and artificial, that it becomes almost laughable to look at. I mean, seriously, I've seen ads for mobile games that looked 10 times more competent than this. However, probably the worst element of the animation is the character animation, because of how the movements feel so clunky and robotic, to the point where the characters seem more like animatronics than real people, and that's not mentioning the awful lip-syncing, where it's practically impossible to find lip movements that match the equally awful dialogue.
I don't know the reason why the film looks this bad, maybe they had a really low budget, maybe the animators didn't know what to do, or maybe the people working on this just didn't care. But at the end of the day, the animation is bad to an almost laughable degree, and nothing can really convince me otherwise, especially when everything presented visually looks either unimpressive, awkward, artificial or just all around cheap.
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The Characters: Now, I have a small question for you. When the story is just absolutely unpleasant to go through and the animation looks so cheap and artificial that it's hard to take seriously, do you really think that the filmmakers would put any care into the characters? Of course not, because not only are the characters very poorly-written, but some actually cause problems that make the film so unpleasant to go through.
First, there's the main protagonist Minna, who's struggling with adapting to the arrival of her new stepfamily, more specifically her stepsister Jenny. And whilst the film tries to excuse her attitude by showing that her mother left her and her father to pursue her singing career, with the complete lack of care put onto the writing, it ends up backfiring, as she instead comes off as a selfish brat who desires to receive all her father's attention, especially near the third act, where everything bad that happened there is because of her jealousy. Sure, this was probably intentional, and she becomes much kinder later on, but it happens way too late into the film to actually fix her earlier selfishness and mean-spirited nature, especially when said nature adds more into the feature's miserable tone.
Next, we have the stepsister Jenny, who is equally as hateable as Minna due to the fact that she is absolutely annoying, especially when she has many jokes about how self-absorbed she is and her social media obsession, which, as I stated before, are anything but funny and feel more cringe-worthy. Not only that, but she also shares many similar flaws with Minna despite their mutual hate, such as becoming more nicer too late into the film to feel redemptive in any way and her selfish nature adding into making the movie as unpleasantly miserable as it is. Now, for the other characters, they fit into one of three categories, none of which are that positive, where they can be left with too little screen time to actually leave an impact on the audience, such as the Inspector and the new stepmother Helene, feel pretty much pointless, like the pet hamster Viggo, or suffer from one negative trait that is just there to help the story progress with its terribly predictable plot, like the pathetically cowardly Dreambuilder Gaff or Minna's annoyingly dumb father John.
However, another element I want to talk about due to its effect on the entire film is how the voice acting is just embarrassingly awful, as it feels like all of the voice actors were way more invested in their paycheck than their performances and thus, they put in no effort into their acting where they all either sound completely bored out of their minds or obnoxiously over-the-top to the point of making the characters feel somehow even worse than they already are. And it doesn't help that the dialogue the actors have to read out is equally as abysmal. In a simple way, the characters serve as the core of the movie, and thus, that means that their atrocious personalities, all topped off with some horrible voice acting, are responsible for making everything in this movie as painful and unpleasant to watch as it is.
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Wow, that was one of the most unpleasant animated features I've ever had the misfortune of watching. Upon fully revisiting this movie after so long, I can comfortably say that Dreambuilders is, in my opinion, not only a great contender for one of the worst animated films I've ever seen, but also among my least favourite animated features, where the movie just feels riddled with so many problems that it becomes impossible to watch without feeling unsatisfied. Sure, it had some promise with its concept, but in the end, all that's really presented is an absolute mess of an animated film, with a story that's predictable from top to bottom, an awful sense of pacing, embarrassingly cheap animation that makes the movie look almost laughable, an unlikable cast of characters that feel either pointless or despicable, horrendous voice acting that makes the abysmal characters even worse, atrocious and cringe-inducing comedy that never once gets a laugh and an unpleasantly miserable tone that covers the overall feature and just leaves a bad taste by giving nothing more than an experience that is downright excruciating to even simply remember!
Now, if it was too subtle to figure out, my recommendation is that you should just stay away from this as much as you humanly can, because if you end up watching it, all you'll be left with afterwards is a despicable mess of an animated film, a sense of regret and an overall feeling of emptiness and sorrow just like I had gotten once it finished! Maybe its concept may have seemed like a dream come true, but the end result is just a completely insufferable nightmare!