Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids review

There's a movie called...

There's a predecessor to a TV show called...

There's a successor to a book series called...

Remember that show about anthropomorphic bugs with CGI that wouldn't look out of place in a late-90s Mainframe Entertainment production? Well you could easily find the episodes on YouTube and the movie too so come back if you need a refresher. Now, you ready for the review?

History

Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids is a 2003 animated film based on a series of books by David Kirk, released from 1994 through to 2001. I haven't read the books, but I have seen some episodes of the show and I did catch the movie, well part of it, and most aspects of it escaped me as I got older. The film was produced by Nelvana, a name you should all know by now, though from then Nelvana rarely produced the animation for their productions themselves. This could be an early entry for AbsoluteDigital Pictures, who was behind the ensuing Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends. The animation for each is similar enough so it's a solid guess.

Given that this is a lesser animated project, who do you think distributed it? Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Yeah, they seem to have (or had, don't know) a pension for releasing lesser animated films. Crazy thing is, this random deviation's description sums up my thoughts on MGM's release rhetoric.

"MGM is one of Hollywood's greatest entertainment powerhouses. Vain but lion-hearted, she works hard to help out her acquaintances with movies, even if they're underrated or just sappy. By the way, MGM distributed "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie" and "Starchaser: The Legend of Orin", so she has a strange taste for kids' movies."This image is by IndigoBunny99

Anyway, as far as I could tell, people consider this film to be... okay. The worst review I've seen knocked the animation. Get back to me when you've seen Rapsittie Street Kids (Christmas is coming) and then tell me how shit the animation is for this movie. Something definitely went right when the movie came out though, for it led to a TV series a year later. People were interested, and that's all that was needed.

Since Treehouse has uploaded many of their old shows onto their YouTube channel, and since they're free to view (at least on my end), I revisited the film to see if it was as good as I remember, and ultimately find whatever I missed.

In spite of being a predominantly Canadian production (hence Nelvana's involvement), the film does have some American actors, well three, and that depends on your point of view on one of them. The film stars Brooke Shields and Rick Moranis, remember him? I recall how he wasted his final role on a sequel to the worst classic 2Disney movie ever, and it's not Home on the Range.

Tony Jay is in this too, and interestingly, in spite of the ensuing TV series using a Canadian cast, he actually reprised his role. I don't know why this is surprising to me because Nelvana shows tend to have some American actors here and there. Tales from the Cryptkeeper actually got John Kassir to reprise his role as the Cryptkeeper, they got Frankie Muniz for Moville Mysteries, they got David Arquette for Pelswick and if Wikipedia's anything to go by, they got Dwight Schultz (Murdoch from The A-Team) for My Dad the Rock Star. Lastly, while they couldn't get Brooke Shields to reprise her role as Miss Spider, they got Kristin Davis to do it, who's not only also based in America, but also appeared in Sex and the City, as in one of the main characters. Charlotte is who she plays. Not knocking her performance she actually does a good job here but that's just some interesting trivia.

Premise

After a subjectively odd title splash which has Miss Spiders' disembodied head on a web, we get a look around Sunny Patch, paradise for bugs and what seems to be an attempt at insectophobia therapy. A wedding is in progress between Miss Spider (Flora's her actual name but since she's known through either I doubt it'd matter what I call her) and Holly (who interesting fact, I thought was a woman for some reason.) Jealousy ensues for the laughably named Spiderus who wanted some of that thick... juicy... egg-sac (Spiderus eats eggs, no matter the creature that lays it, so that joke is actually just a subtle allegory with a hint of embellishment.)

One aspect of the film that irks me is that it's mostly just filler. It takes too long to get to the nitty-gritty of the plot and the filler scenes just reveal minor details. You could say I'm being too harsh on scenes that exist for foreshadowing, but look at it like this. There's a scene where a chicken (the bugs' prime enemy, thanks for not using a human because given where the movie's heading it would be kinda weird, and I hate to imagine how they'd depict humans with their animation) attacks the bugs, but it turns out that it's there for another purpose I won't reveal just yet. To get there, we had to go through an overlong party scene.

After Miss Spider and Holly tie the knot, the former is pregnant, pre-maternal stress ensues. Part of that comes from the fact that Miss Spider was abandoned at a young age and as a result she never learned the necessities of being a spider, like making the egg sac. She is adopted by Betty Beatle (take a guess what kind of bug she is) and the rest is history.

Nobody knows for sure what happened to Miss Spider's biological mother or what kind of mother she is. Maybe Miss Spider was an unwanted baby that came from a forced sexual encounter, but the mother was against getting an abortion (could you blame her) so just left Miss Spider in the hopes the problem would fix itself. Maybe she was eaten by a chicken, but then again that could've led to something far more interesting for the movie. Or maybe the mother moved to Canaima, California, met a Venezuelan spider and bred an army to kill the residents, only to be done in by an arachnophobic doctor and John Goodman, but probably John Goodman.

R.I.P.

But then again, Miss Spider claims to have stuck with Betty because she loved her the best. So did they find Miss Spider's mom and she was like fuck off or whatever? I dunno that's not important.

Soon enough, Miss Spider lays her eggs, one of which nearly winds up in Spiderus' obnoxiously evil gob. They hatch and we get to see the lazier aspect of the film's animation. Almost instantly the bugs are born with their clothes on. Wiggle has her hat, Squirt (nice name by the way, way to make him feel small when he gets older surely, if ever, who ages in animation?), has his hat too, and Spinner has his glasses, not to mention glasses right this moment.

The kids come across a giant egg (and refer back in the plot summary to get an idea on who laid it, you may be astounded by your lack of surprise.) and decorate it. Squirt, concerned that it's an egg without a mother to retrieve it, sets out to find it. All that really happens is a stretched rendition of traveling through dangerous areas, Miss Spider trying to find Squirt and Spiderus trying to find the egg, to eat.

From this point, not much happens beyond some encounters with new characters, with only three of them turning out to be important. Squirt comes across a trio of kid bandits, Dragon, a dragonfly who takes on the tough egotist persona (only other interesting aspect is that his actor (Mitchell Eisner)'s wikipedia page redirects to the page for Ed, Edd n' Eddy, and near as I could tell he never appeared in the show. Back to the other two there's Bounce, a bedbug who's portrayal is far off from that of an actual bedbug, he doesn't look like a bloodsucker to me, and finally there's Shimmer, who could do anything she wants evidentially, whether it involves being the more reasonable voice of the three or detecting warmth (okay the former's understandable, at least in fiction, and I would say water beetles could detect heat, but her character summary says it's one of the few abilities she has that others do not.) All this amounts to is more characters coming along for the ride.

As concerned parents do, Miss Spider sets out along with Holly to find Squirt. Spiderus comes along, but if my big bad comments weren't indicative enough, Spiderus isn't going to walk away without blood on his legs. Adding to this is an apparent snow storm, which occurs in either summer or spring. Luckily the characters are as confused over this as I am. This just amounts to Squirt and co. taking shelter in a stinkbug's home (which itself amounts to a significant clue for Miss Spider and her party.

When I first watched this, I got to the scene where Miss Spider and co. traverse across a weak natural bridge. I bring this up because I thought Spiderus died here, or at the very least was left to die, and hence I was surprised he made it to the TV series. But no that doesn't happen. Holly does go down to save him and they continue to the Stinkbug, where they learn that their ultimate destination is a farm. A farm with chickens (the bugs' prime enemy fyi). Spiderus is also relinquished of his jealous lover characterization after he discovers a beauty as physically impaired as him. You know what? I'm okay with that, this character also appears in the TV series.

All that happens next amounts to the kids evading the chicken, who's reunited with its egg. All ends happily, and how could it not given the nature of this movie?

To Sum Up

Any disappointment I have with the premise mostly stems from my own beliefs on how the film could've been better. With everything that either occurs or is mentioned, I thought it would be better to embellish the grim aspects. This amounts to the chicken being the one that killed Miss Spider's mom, or the kids accidentally killing the chicken and winding up having to adopt the soon to be hatched. I'm kinda fucked up if you can't tell by now.

The Animation

Let's get the elephant out of the room, the animation... hasn't aged that well let's just get that out of the way. I could forgive the animation more if I were talking about the series, but the movie and show have the same quality animation. Canadian CGI animation has always been hit-or-miss, with Mainframe Entertainment's shows being doomed to look dated and primitive, and Monster By Mistake being the most offensive of them all (be thankful you don't know what I'm referring to.)

There is a silver lining to this, the design is actually very close to the art style present in the book, and I guess the lesser animation led to more malleable designs, hence the non-jagged circular artifacts.

Overall

This review is lacking, but that's because there isn't that much to the special. Best I could say is that it gets the job done. Miss Spider isn't the kind of series that warrants major action every few seconds. It's just an easy-going series that teaches basic morals and inspires good feelings. It fits the atmosphere present in the books, it's faithful to the books, hell, the only complaint I've seen about the series and the movie so far is the animation, and to that I say, you made anime-styled shows famous.

I'd also like to point out one thing that bugs me. Miss Spider gave birth, and is still alive. Mother spiders usually die after giving birth, giving some of their life to the newborns. You may think that I'm applying pointless real world logic to this, but this happened in a little number called Charlotte's Web, I'm sure you've heard of that.

If you want to watch the movie for yourselves, here it is.