First Impressions: Toopy and Binoo The Movie (2023)

Sorry guys, this is not a blog about the new Ninja Turtles movie, I'm just kinda done with that franchise. After being told I didn't have taste because I dared to not like the first episodes of Rise, I'm kind over the whole franchise. Hope everyone enjoys it, I'm skipping it. So instead, I went to see Toopy and Binoo, because I... screw it, I like these movies. Movies for young kids based on properties for young kids, they can be calm and relaxing watches, like the previously reviewed Blue's Clues and Little Bear movies. I'm not gonna lie, I think these kinds of movies are nice to watch if they're done right, and while I don't think they're up in the higher echelons of animated movies like Felidae or Treasure Planet, they still have some value to watch. Was I expecting anything out of Toopy and Binoo? Absolutely not, I expected a not-so-good but ultimately harmless kids movie, and I got a not-so-good but ultimately harmless kids movie.

Toopy and Binoo is a French Canadian book series that was made into an animated series in 2005. Funny enough, there was another French Canadian book series that was made into an animated series... You know, that kid's who's four, and each day he grows some more? Yeah, Caillou probably tanked any reputation Canadian pre-school shows could have, and I'm not going to act like Toopy and Binoo is like, Blue's Clues or Bear in the Big Blue House, it's a show for little kids made by people who only expect their audience to be little kids. I've seen a few episodes, and ultimately the show is not great. I do have to wonder why this movie got a theatrical release, no seriously, it has a theatrical release, why? I mean, I'm not going to argue that some movies don't deserve the grandiosity of a theatrical release, but I am going to say... why did a movie based on a pre-school property that hasn't done anything since 2006 get a theatrical release, I'm genuinely curious.

It's not like the movie looks that much better than the show, admittedly I don't remember much about the show, but other than the locations, the characters all look the same. I mean, this is equally a good and bad thing, because it looks like the show so it won't be odd looking to any fans of the show, but I have to think that people wouldn't really pay the theatre price to see a movie that doesn't look any better than what they can get on TV. Really though, that is just the surface level, honestly the backgrounds and locations are kinda nice, I wouldn't say they're absolutely stunning, but they aren't unappealing to look at, I may not be impressed by it, but it's not bad.

Sadly, the characters can't really have the same said about them. Most of them are just really annoying, they all have negative traits pushed into an annoying degree, Toopy himself is just unbearably narcissistic, one character is attached to her phone so much that I can't help but wonder if this is a jab at Gen-Z, two characters are annoyingly cowardly, one is annoyingly entitled, the only main character that isn't annoying really is Binoo, and that's mostly because he doesn't talk at all. I do tend to like silent characters like Gromit or the Cobbler in the Recobbled Cut, usually because it gives the animators the task of trying to communicate to the audience exactly what the character is thinking. I don't really get too much of that with Binoo, mostly because the art-style really does limit what can be done with the animation. On top of that, the characters don't really go through much of an arc, when they change by the end, we don't really see exactly how they got from point A to B.

Honestly, the movie isn't bad. It is just a movie for really young kids, and it's made exactly like that. There is a moment where everyone is worried about waking up a giant monster, but when it wakes up, it just cries. Okay, they didn't want anything that could be upsetting to the audience, okay, but there really is nothing challenging in this movie. There is no real emotional hook or gut punch, there's nothing like Steve feeling depressed about not finding one of Blue's Clues, or Little Bear and Cub going through dangerous territory to reunite Cub with his lost parents. All we get is Binoo really wanting to find his plush toy, I can see this being like, a twenty-minute special or something, not an hour long feature. There is also a minor running gag about these two characters who are meant to be identical twins, and all I can say is... Muppets did it much better.

Again though, I went in expecting a not-so-good movie, and I got a not-so-good movie, but it was ultimately harmless. Maybe some kids might start imitating some of the characters, but other than that, I can't think of anything really harmful to kids, I just think that when they grow up, they're not going to really have anything to come back to with this movie. I can definitely think of worse movies, honestly this one is going to rank really low on my worst animated movies of the year list, if it ranks at all. If you have really young kids and you want to keep them quiet for an hour, their are worse ways to do that, if you want to show your children something that they can come back to, The Little Bear Movie is on YouTube on the Little Bear - Official channel, so you can show them that instead. Do I recommend this one, even slightly? Not really, it isn't unwatchable, but it also isn't worth watching.