Orion and the Dark is premiering on Netflix on February 2nd, but it has largely been overlooked. The streaming service released only one trailer, prompting concerns that perhaps it had just ordered something it didn’t like – in collaboration with DreamWorks Animation, nonetheless –– and was then disposing of it in their servers at the start of February. Therefore, finding out that this movie is delightful, intelligent, daring, and far more profound than other animated offerings available for streaming at around the same time is amazing news for all of us.
Is Orion and the Dark illuminating?
Netflix continues to come up with creative animations; this new movie falls into that category nicely. This unexpected story in Orion and the Dark has so much to offer as both entertaining and enlightening.
This gives out from its peers through a fascinating voice cast alongside some beautiful-looking animation. I mean who expected an animated kids’ film from Charlie Kaufman? We don’t think we did either when making our 2024 movie release bingo card.
If Netflix had made an effort to distribute this theatrically; it would be one of those films you wish they really tried to get onto the big screen as they could have done with a good-sized cinema audience. However, its power lies heavily in its imagination as much as how the film looks thus making it still work well in smaller venues though.
Script And Direction: “Orion And The Dark.”
However, since ‘Orion And The Dark’ is adapted from Emma Yarlett’s children’s picture book published in 2015 by Emma Yarlett who wrote and illustrated ‘Orion And The Dark,’ the latter became a very satisfying piece of work incorporating surprising depths.
Then again maybe we shouldn’t be overly surprised since Charlie Kaufman was tapped to write it which doesn’t reach some of his other bizarre outings (because nobody wants stop motion sex scene in a kids’ film) but he along with Lloyd Taylor did bring a bit of his biting humor to a story about a young man forced to confront his fears, having also made such unique films as ‘Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind’ and ‘Adaptation.’
Orion feels like one of Kaufman’s characters; the type who needs advice on journeys. However, it goes beyond that –– a narrative twist portrays the film as an older Orion narrating it for his daughter in order to deal with her own nervousness, thus making it somewhat self-referential as well as a commentary on storytelling.
There is however no mere window dressing among them all—each one displays its own kernel of story and emotional foundation.
The animation aspects under Sean Charmatz (who previously worked as a storyboard artist for movies in the Troll and How To Train Your Dragon franchises before helming one of their direct-to-video spin-offs) turn out to be rather superlative. It may not compete with Spider-Verse movies but sometimes these characters look like they were drawn from children’s sketches (which matches their origins pretty well). There are also stunning snapshots like that of Dark when seen from above spreading almost-watery nightfall all over the world.
‘Orion and the Dark’: Performances
Paul Walter Hauser, known for his versatile performances in both comedy and drama, impresses as a talented voice-over actor. His Dark is a fantastic character not lacking humor; he comes with many personal problems, including a tendency to envy other sources of light (Ike Barinholtz plays those opposite him earnestly but briefly).
Jacob Tremblay’s Orion is well executed and Colin Hanks makes his adult self heard as he unravels his experiences (but we won’t spoil how he fully ties in).
The rest of the night creatures are hilariously fun when they appear on screen elsewhere and give an imaginative insight into nocturnal troubles such as insomnia and unexplained noises.
‘Orion and the Dark’: Final Thoughts
It seems more like an artistic Pixar movie than just another installment in the franchise, ‘Orion’ is some far cry from barely thought-through entertainment that makes sense at least 545 times for every animated film featuring children discovering their hidden powers to defeat evil antagonists with help from magic tutors –– no matter how much you dress it up.
Read Orion And The Dark Movie Review on Fmovies
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