Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms (2008) Poster

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5/10
Nothing new under the dirt
p-stepien22 January 2011
Bjarne is coming of age. His mother is immensely frightened that her little worm will be unable to drop his childhood follies and focus on his new work at a waste processing plant. Unfortunately for her she is right as Bjarne indulges into his new passion: creating a disco band and scooping up a huge prize at the talent competition. This leads him to create Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms. On bass: his best friend the extremely overweight Jimmy. On guitar: metal-head Niller: On backup vocals: pretty-worm Gloria. On drums: secretary music-extraordinaire Donna.

A mildly entertaining affair, which starts of a bit tedious and uninspiring, but actually manages to hit the funk somewhere towards the end with a couple of nicely sold gags plus surprisingly well-scripted (albeit extremely predictable) plotting. Even though the characters are mostly unsympathetic (save for maybe the characters of Niller and Donna) the movie manages to hit home with the boogie. I really must say that I was taken slightly by surprise, as I was expecting a semi-digested turd, but instead actually found myself enjoying the final third of the movie.

The movie will never get applauds for innovative script or spectacular jokes, while the charm is all over the place, but the essential question is whether the disco fever will channel through your body by the end. In my case I would have to say yes.
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5/10
Worms Dance to Disco to Compete in Competition....that's about it
elicopperman8 January 2018
So this is a movie about worms who are treated by other insects with the same respect of white people being prejudice towards black people. Suddenly, a worm named Barry gains a love for disco music, so with the help of some other passionate worms, he sets forth to compete in a music talent competition to prove that worms have more to offer than being gross grubs.

Yeah it's as cliche as it gets, and while this isn't a bad film per se, it definitely leans on the mediocre side. The biggest flaw this film has is how predictable the plot is; it's the same underdog story we've heard in countless other animated features where the main character wants to rise up above all odds and prove he's worth something. It doesn't help that it also contains the story beats of getting a band together, the main protagonist having a falling out with the other members, and then they get back together, and a female band member even becomes his love interest. Seriously, this feels like a diet Pixar or Dreamworks film with even more derivative beats.

It doesn't help that the characters are rather one dimensional down to their basic traits. Barry is the loser who wants to prove he's more than what he seems, Tito is the fat best friend who resists the band at first before soon joining in, Gloria is the love interest who can't sing unless from the heart, and Tony Dean is the generic bully singer who hates any worm. There really isn't much weight to them outside of their traits and the movie doesn't really let them grow outside of the generic plot. The only character worth remembering is the British punk rock worm Jimmy, since he offers the best laughs and grows from hating disco to liking it rather smoothly. Oh, and Barry's dad does give some closure to the plot, but he might've done it later than he should have.

Furthermore, considering that this is a Danish animated film with an English dub, the voice acting itself is fine and some of the singing is quite enjoyable. However, where the voices are passable enough, the synching is not very good and it makes it all the more obvious how little the mouth movements match the alternate language track.

Now to the film's credit, it does have a good message. It's not the fame or money coming from music that makes it worth it, it's the love and passion from the creator that really matters. That can speak to anybody of a young age, and as cliched as the story is, it does highlight said message to remind all that fame is nothing compared to the talent hidden inside you. Also, while not Pixar quality, the animation is decent enough and the animators do get rather creative with the dance moves, timing, and even lights. Although, why did you have to put breasts on the female worms? That...that's just wrong. Lastly, the soundtrack is a lot of fun considering it contains a bunch of 70s disco classics, and it even made me sing along much of the time.

Overall, Disco Worms is by no means of dubious quality, but it certainly doesn't rise above mediocrity. While the message, animation, and soundtrack do give the film some fun entertainment value, the predicable story, bland characters and obvious poor lip synch keep the film from being anything special. I guess if you're in the mood for a sub par movie that at least offers some fun songs and groovy animation, then you might have fun with this. Otherwise, this is a generic albeit harmless film that only children might have fun with, but at least they'll understand to not let fame get to their head. In fact, never let go of your talent, and keep on playing that funky music pink worm...I mean white boy.
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5/10
One of the movies with the strangest concept I've ever seen.
santamariamateo10 September 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I discovered this movie when I was looking for another movie with a similar concept that I saw a few years ago, and it caught my attention that it is about a worm that likes disco music, a somewhat strange concept, anyway, it made me curious. , then I saw it.

To start, the first thing you notice is that female worms have tits. But I'll talk about that later.. Another thing is the animation, it is not at all good, even for its time. After some research, I realized that this movie only had a budget of 5 million dollars, so that's kind of understandable, plus animating dancing worms must be difficult.

One of the things I liked about the movie is the music, since the music is very good.

The story is not as bad as I thought, it is simple and somewhat cliché, but at least it is entertaining or at least that is what I think.

And its moral, which is that you do not discriminate against others and follow your dreams and goals, or at least that's what I understood.

Something I noticed is that this movie has several things that make no sense, yes I already know that it is an animated movie and not EVERYTHING has to make sense, but there are some details that were inconsistent.

The first thing is that the worms have hair and clothes, I understand that it was for Aser the characters, as you could say... somewhat humanoid, but obtaining fabric for clothes would be very difficult, especially for worms. Now the electricity, yes You saw the movie, you probably noticed that there are televisions, light poles and other things that need electricity, and I repeat the same thing from the previous one, it would be very difficult for worms to have all those functional things, another thing I noticed is that in Barry's house, at minute 20:09 you can see in the windows that they have flowers and some plants, which doesn't make sense why there aren't such, but SO tiny plants, I don't know why, but I feel like the writers forgot that This is not a world where worms and insects rule the world and are the size of humans, I say this because of what was mentioned above and the following, at minute 5:45 a painting of a moose is seen behind Barry's mother , which does not make sense, since since they are worms they should see these types of GIANT animals and also, how do they change it to take a photo? And finally, because this movie has so many inconsistencies that every time it is analyzed it has increasingly less sense, is that one part, more specifically at minute 37:50, shows Dito eating a carrot, as I said, carrots should be tiny enough to be seen like that in front of a worm.

Another thing I didn't like were some decisions made by the animators or other people who worked on the film, like giving an example of what I said at the beginning that female worms HAVE TITS. Let's see, in this movie there are worms, males and females, when really they should be hermaphrodites, the fact that they did it that way makes sense, but this doesn't, I guess they did it that way so that they would be different from the males, but I'm 99% wrong. Sure. Surely only her long hair, her voices and her thinner body were enough for her. Also, that in Barry's dad's glasses, you have his eyes, instead of making them transparent.

Simply questions that will never be answered.

I guess whoever came up with that has... unusual tastes xd.

Now let's move on to some things I didn't like about the movie.

The design of the characters, being worms, are mostly the same, only with some differences, which from my point of view made the environment look a little boring and unlike other insects, the truth is that they would have suited you the characters well. With that budget.

Now, while watching it, I realized that the movie had animation errors, for example: At minute 29:02 the insect in the back acts as if it is shaking a glass when in reality it is not shaking anything.

At minute 54:30 Barry has one suit, but in the next scene he has another one, in fact, why didn't the fisherman question that the worms he was going to use as hooks had clothes, hair and two of these, TITS ? At 57:31 (a mistake that I think is a bit unforgivable) Jimmy's tail crosses the floor At minute 31:57 there are some insects behind, which are white as if their modeling was not well rendered (or at least that's what I want to believe).

Another thing I complain about is that the romance between Barry and Gloria seemed a little forced. Also, the "villain" I feel like I don't really contribute much to the plot Anyway, to finish the movie, the truth is that it is somewhat entertaining, it is not very good, but very little of it is trash, you can enjoy it, although I really wouldn't recommend it at all.

At least it's better than foodfight xd.

Thank you for reading.
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1/10
All bad
plrecords25 November 2019
My children are 5 and 3, and they both are disappointed with me for my selecting this for them.
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Predictable yet enjoyable musical family movie
thislizard21 July 2010
When I saw the first trailer I was rather skeptical about another animated movie made to promote celebrities through giving them voice roles and singing old hits all over again. I was surprised to see that it was actually very well done. The version which I watched was dubbed by Polish soap-opera actors, pop-rock singers and talent-show jurors so every worm got a celebrity matching their character and the arrangements of songs were very well done. My wild guess is that other language versions worked in a similar way.

The animation is fairly nice, with many background details and fantastically designed body language of the worms whose tail-gestures make up for the lack of arms.

The plot is very predictable, so I won't even try to spoil it. The movie reminds us that we should never give up on dreams, follow our heart, be proud of our children whatever they are good at, believe in ourselves and our friends, be able to express ourselves and not be posers. Rather typical stuff, but good to be reminded of from time to time.

A very good point of the movie is that it is suitable for people of all ages. Children will follow the simple plot, teenagers will laugh at the characters and adults will pick up the satire on relations between generations and the dull life of working people.

I recommend it to families with children and suggest some dancing during the final scene and credits.
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4/10
A unwatchable mess
jamesbond-2826427 February 2023
I don't know why most of the reviews are overhyping this film. The characters aren't really interesting and dull and the plot is really unoriginal and its just a ripoff of Flushed Away and Bee Movie and every second it just starts to become even more worse with stuff like horrible political messages and stereotypes.

Animation is really bad and the characters have weird movements that fell into the uncanny valley and the backgrounds look like plastic (even in 2008 there were films with better animation than this) the character design looks like it had potential but got messed up in a horrible film.
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2/10
Oh my god this is bad.
crwilliams-2169114 November 2022
TL/DR: This movie uses marginalized groups as a punchline and nothing else.

I'm a big fan of less common animation, and I'm not afraid of wack and wild plots like this. What gets me is when they faeture a nuanced topic like body dysmorphia or internalized homophobia (both of which are touched on in this movie) and just...throw it all away in favor of a generic heterosexual side plot. Even worse, it seems like the only reason they added a character with body image issues and a closeted gay character is to poke fun at them. Obviously these characters are allowed to exist in movies (and they should) and they're allowed to be involved in jokes, but they shouldn't exist just to be the punchline of a joke.

On top of that, every female character in this movie is a sexist stereotype. The drummer worm (whose name escapes me, but I don't think it was mentioned more than once) was the least aggressively sexist, but she never got a chance to shine at all.

In conclusion, I will never get that hour and a half of my life back and the writers should learn how to be funny without punching down.
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7/10
A Nutshell Review: Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms
DICK STEEL23 May 2009
School holiday season would dictate more animated and family oriented films being released in the theatres, and while we would rue at having to wait until September for Pixar's Up, we have to make do with the rather lacklustre Monsters vs Aliens with 3D gimmick, and the little unknowns (pardon the pun) like Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms, set in the insect kingdom with earthworms species being put in the spotlight.

I suppose it's a challenge to animate earthworms. After all, they're tiny, they're slimy, and you just can't tell heads over tails. But no matter, this Danish animation managed to have it all worked out, fusing disco singing and dancing, with an effective, if not tried and tested, formula about turning zeroes into heroes. Released as the dubbed English version here, the animation is easy on the eyes, going for a very clean look with just enough visual details that prevent it from clogging up your senses. Disco lovers will no doubt find themselves tapping to famous tunes of the Disco era, such as Blame it on the Boogie and evergreens from the Village People, amongst others.

But I was rather surprised and pleased at the more mature theme a show for kids had attempted to tackle, and that's on discrimination. It's set very early on in the film that the earthworms are of lower caste in the insect kingdom, getting no respect or love from the larger community, just because they are at the bottom of the foodchain, having no valued skills other than to maintain the compost of their shared habitat. Literally the poop job if you'd like, and having a career none other than to do that for the rest of their lives. One cannot even aspire to be the CEO of their compost company, because it's a position reserved for other insects to manage over them.

So dreamers like the titular Barry, who dreams of being a disco singer/dancer with his own band, have no place in the community for his lack of willingness to conform, unlike best pal Tito, a fat worm looked down upon and being made fun of because of its weight. Barry finds his true calling one day when he gets passed down his dad's old box to help him in his middle-management examinations, and soon finds enough inspiration to turn his dream into reality, even if it means dodging his protective mother's queries, and having absolutely no clue going about doing so, assembling a rag-tag team of worms with raw talent that needs plenty of polishing.

Throw in a romance subplot, and a chief adversary in the form of a ballad crooning beetle who sees them as a rival in their bid to win 10 Grand in a Top of the Pops equivalent contest, and you have a neat film which has great musical tracks and a simple story with a main theme that children can grasp onto. It's a little inspiring as well with the entrenched thought of dreaming big, and working at making one's dreams come true, with what matters being the journey and the experience gained, not everything focused solely on the destination and material goals.
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10/10
This is not easy film.
mrcnma22 July 2021
This is the story about friends grounded to the corporation jobs. In their world you cannot be somebody if you do not agree with the corporationism. Work, eat, sleep are only allowed activities. Is it not the same as we have in our world ?. Film required deep understanding and this is not film for young children because they will not able to understand what is going on. This is not film for everybody.
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Very funny, great music and animation
ctyankee127 March 2013
The story starts with Barry a worm who accidentally finds a record of disco music and plays it. His body starts moving, his tale flips and the music takes over him. Barry feels worthless. He works for a company in a compost pile. Lots of insects make fun of him and his capabilities. He wants to do more with his life.

He starts to look for band members a singer, drum player etc He convinces his friends to join he decides to and enter his band in a contest hoping to win money

The movie is very amusing. It is animated but more for kids over 12. The songs are disco music "Boogie Wonderland, Feelings, Disco Inferno, Upside Down" and more. All really good.

The singing and instruments animation in the movie are so good with worms playing the guitar and drums.

Barry is discouraged - others keep telling him disco is not the kind of music that will make him famous.

The storyline shows if you keep trying to do something you believe in and have talent for -- people still come against you but, in the end you come out the winner. I found that to be a good reason enough to like the movie though I think was made for entertainment,

The producers, cast members, musical and animation team make this a great movie.
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