swapped (2026)
FILMS★3/5
directed by nathan greno
my friend amanda summed up in a letterboxd review everything i have to say in one sentence but much better: "would’ve been good if it wasn’t bad".
the biggest strength of this film hands down is that it has harnessed the power of 3d animation and really creatively utilized its visual palette. this movie is so visually interesting! all the characters are made-up species in a fictional, fantastical biome. the cast is made of creatures who all have some kind of adaptive evolution that allows them to blend in with their environment, not unlike real life, but augmented. there are pinecone mice, root snakes, rock bears, birch deer, etc. the character design adds a lot of charm and interest that really helps deliver an overall satisfying and interesting viewing experience.
the other great strength of this movie is the ability to stick to the lesson it sets out to teach. the main character, a pookoo named ollie (played by michael b. jordan, a casting choice i have yet to fully understand), falls into a situation where he becomes a javan, a bird species that through a series of unfortunate events ended up overtaking the main food source of the pookoos. alongside an unlikely javan friend named ivy (played by juno temple, a casting choice i understand WAY more), they discover that there is more strength in working together than against eachother to fight the greater evil (the evil in question being ~the firewolf~ (played by tracy morgan), a villain that does feel like was dreamed up by one of my 3-year old students and forgotten almost instantly after it was said out loud). i appreciate when a moral lesson is clear in a movie made for children, because i am TIRED of children's content being brain melting mush (lookin at u cocomelon).
the film has some strengths that i am very relieved to see in a new movie, because its something thats been missing in the copy-and-paste kids movies we've been getting recently. and yet...
i don't think this movie is pushing any boundaries, adding anything to the film landscape, or really saying anything particularly new or challenging. i truly believe i've been spoiled growing up in the early 2000s, a golden age for kids movies. dreamworks was on FIRE with hits like shrek, madagascar, and the bee movie. pixar had broken ground and established a new era in cgi filmmaking with toy story, monsters inc, the incredibles, ratatouille and cars. disney was putting out bangers like lion king, lilo and stitch, brother bear and finding nemo. all of these movies challenged the status quo, made statements or told stories that weren't the kind of thing you were getting on children's tv programming, and most notably of all, were fun for parents/adults just as much as for kids.
I want to make it so clear: i know swapped was not made for me. i'm 25 years old, i don't need the "we need to work together" lesson taught to me from a netflix original. i know i'm not the intended audience for this film, but i feel ostracized by how BORING and safe this movie is. the script is cheesy and cliché at best, the characters are flat and predictable, the body-swap is a story thats been told a trillion times in a trillion different ways. the visual satisfaction of this film just doesn't make up for the fact that this movie does nothing to change the way kids movies are made, something it so had the potential to do with the accessibility of the netflix platform, netflix budget, and the attractiveness of the visual design. in short, this movie had the possibility to do so much more, but just fell short. it was a nice watch, but that was about where that ends.
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