Buffalo Kids

This is something a bit different to all the animated movies out there. It has a more grown up plot and storyline and is quite rough and tumble, navigating some pretty heavy stuff for the younger audience like kidnapping, killing, and that's the sort of language used. It isn't trying to be Minions where everyone is made of rubber and can fly through walls, it tries to get you invested in a real tale of life or death heroics.

That said, it fails to achieve that in the first half. The pacing felt way off in the first half, parts which should grab you fall flat, feel rushed or incoherent in the editing. The cinematography in these scenes had the same feeling, as did the expressions of the characters. Everything falls a little flat early on and the indifference in the cinema when we saw it was palpable in the early stages. I suspect a lot of footage was cut or quickly edited to reduce the runtime, and it felt like they picked the wrong stuff to cut. It was a shame because the movie really delivers in the second half.

Once they reach the scenes set in the mine, things changed. Everything improved. The pacing, the cinematography and the characters came to life.

All in all, a good family movie, well worth a watch. Don't give up on it in the first half, things begin to flow much better as it progresses.