Free Jimmy (2006)

I have to admit I needed about 15 minutes to get used to the style of this animation. I like that for a change we get to see something different than your average Pixar happy ending movies (which is also nice, but it needed balancing out).It reminds me a little of the short movie "Fallen Art" which to me is brilliant. To draw a comparison with Pixar: Pixar always succeeds in getting the audience to love or hate their characters and feel for them. This team did a good job with Jimmy and I just want to adopt him. For me that makes a good movie. The movies contains a bit of humor (however black it may be) and it makes this entertaining if you take to time to get past the first 15 minutes. Like the graphics and characters set up.

Fmovies: Isn't it annoying how film reviewers describe unusual films often as (insert film title here) on drugs? So LIFE OF BRIAN is THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD on dope, MEET THE FEEBLES is MUPPETS on acid, and perhaps JAWS once was FLIPPER on steroids. Having said that, FREE JIMMY literally is DUMBO on speed. No, really: Jimmy is a circus elephant that's kept quiet with downers and pushed with uppers for the show. And that old pachyderm is wanted by many groups. Smalltime crooks want to retrieve heroin sewn under the animal's skin, the Lappland mafia wants the same, militant animal activists want to free the tortured beast, and drunk Swedish game hunters look for anything as big as a moose to shoot in the Scandinavian outbacks. Doesn't sound like your run-off-the-mill blockbuster, and it isn't. FREE JIMMY is a CG-animated Norwegian film, skillfully voiced by Woody Harrelson, Kyle McLachlan, Samantha Morton, Simon Pegg, Jim Broadbent and others. It's wickedly non-pc, with a number of hilarious scenes, and sometimes reminds one of FRITZ THE CAT with the sex and suffering animals shown. It works as a FREE WILLY spoof, not sparing any of Jimmy's pursuers from scoff and mockery. It's not as insanely funny as THE FEEBLES were, but a good nasty laugh nonetheless. 7/10

The problem with modern animation is that the first observations from commentors seem to be about the quality of the animation. It distracts, at least when the film is big budget.

The advantage of this sort of animation for me is that the filmmaker can go further into the extreme, can be more dramatic and large, more risky and imaginative, than the limits of humans and cameras allows. This film means more to me on that account than any of the Pixar projects, and I admire them greatly. But at the end of the day with them, they leave you were they found you, except for their experiments with depth and space.

this instead tries for something deeper, something that matters, the stuff that justifies theater.

The basic spine of this is the filmmaker's brother. He was a performer killed by drugs, like the titular Jimmy. Often violent and pitiful, once you know this fact, the portrayal of the elephant is pretty heartwrenching. Overlayed on it is a vehicle for Nordic humor: stuff an American audience will miss, both because the jokes are beyond us and because the English script is different. There are some engaging episodes here: funny, disgusting, poignant. They are the means used for transporting us, the tricks used to convince us into collaborating on maintaining an alternative world.

Its that world that works for me. Its a mix of the previously mentioned extremes plus three traditional forms. Its a conventional tragedy. Everything grinds toward the inevitable. But its a noir too. There are incredible coincidences brought on by the mechanism of watching. Its a closed world that produces unlikely twists and that captures people in a fate that is for our amusement. And it is folded. Usual folds are simple, with one viewer mechanism. Here there are many viewing agents, each one controlling some element of the noir (except the Norweigians, a joke). Hunters, Laplanders, some Russian circus punks, some animal rights terrorists, and a Moose.

All of these three: tragedy, viewer-incited noir and observer-folding reinforce the story of the lost brother.

This works. Its worthy.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Free Jimmy fmovies. I got to see the British version of this film and yes it was very funny. Be warned though, due to the stereotype that obviously we London Cockney's have got is used to the full in this. The Facking (use a u instead of the a and you get what i mean, if you are a Londoner you will Definitely know what i mean) word gets used quite a lot in this film, nearly all the time. The cream of British talent is in this which was what stood out to me in watching it. Phil "Quadrophenia" Daniels plays a funny foul mouthed cockney junkie in this that really has to be seen to be believed. Simon "Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead" Pegg is the other main characters in this and at times is virtually unrecognisable in this as he is doing a voice and you can only just get that it's him. The one who played the little guy of the group made me laugh the most as he was always doing things wrong. David "The Doctor" Tennant is also in this and made me laugh quite a few times as he uses his original Scottish accent to the full here. Woody Harrelson Plays the American junkie who dreams of having his own circus, Kris "My family" Marshall plays a animal rights crusader, so does Samantha "Band of Gold/Minority Report" Morton plays a emotional and clumsy animal rights crusader. Even Kyle "Twin peaks" Mclachlan turns up in this as the leader of the animal rights crusaders. This movie is a riot from beginning to end but also there is a message in it too. It may be hard to find under the language and the laughs but when the film is finished, it will hit you. There are some very touching scenes in it too. Free Jimmy is a film for Older kids because of the language but if you can by pass that then kids will love it and laugh with you at all the jokes.

The story is a bit slow but the acting and the performances push it through and make it an entertaining movie to watch. Like i said Parents: It's up to you if you want to show this to your kids, mind you kids already know that kind of language nowadays so i don't see why not. It's the kind of cartoon Disney would make if they had the balls.

Some of you who have commented on this movie obviously don't know the background for this movie. Christopher Nielsen who made this movie is brother of one of the most known dead punk rock stars in Norway, Joakim Nielsen. Who played in Jokke & Valentinerne, which is one of the most influential band in Norwegian punk.! And this movie is in a way Christophers' feelings, about how he feel how Joakims' life went. The way showbiz "drugged" Joakim(jimmy), so he would shut up and earn them some money. And most of the animated characters in the movie are ego's of people in the real life who were around Jokke. But i have to admit that a lot of the humor in this movie is directed to Norwegian viewers.

This sure is an odd piece of work. It's the best Norwegian animated feature since the extremely well made Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, but in the end it doesn't even reach up to the knees of the old classic. However, that's not saying it's bad. It's good, but it's just not perfect. I really got quite sentimental about that old junkie elephant, but then it hit me - it's just a lump of pixels. The set detail is all very gritty and gloomy, just like junkie life is supposed to be, but at some points the quality of the graphics take me a bit out of the story. Or possibly the story dragged a bit on some points, and that made me think about the graphics. I don't know, but there's something that didn't feel right. Still the film kicks back a few quite memorable laughs. But while the film has a really serious topic of drug use, I feel like it's handled a bit superficially. The reason for it I think is what seems to be the need to fill out the film with action and Brit-like complication humour all the time. I don't know, or maybe the creator was on speed when he made it... The speed scene, bye the way, is one of the funniest in the film. Most of the humour is low key and dark, but at some points it's just plain hilarious. Just the thought of a Sami biker mafia is bound to make you chuckle. Not all of the humour hit home, though, like when Nielsen (the director) tries to do a Tarantino on you. Still, the budgetary lapse of this production was worth it, because for every fault this film has, there are at least two things that makes up for it. So, if you're in for something dark, strange and funny - go see it! Or like Timothy Leary would have said it: "Turn on, tune in, drop out."