Brittany Howard in Netflix Animated Movie

Right here’s tips on how to take a youngsters’s e-book geared to youthful youngsters and adapt it into an animated function that adults can get pleasure from simply as a lot: Merely rent Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess, the husband-and-wife screenwriting group chargeable for such movies as Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, and have them apply their distinctive model of off-kilter humor to the fabric. Add to {that a} top-notch voice forged led by Brittany Howard, the previous lead singer of Alabama Shakes turned solo artist, and you’ve got Thelma the Unicorn, one other winner for Netflix’s animation division.

Tailored from the best-selling e-book by Aaron Blabey (whose e-book The Dangerous Guys turned an animated big-screen hit), the movie co-directed by Jared Hess and Lynn Wang (Unikitty!) revolves across the titular character, voiced by Howard. Besides that Thelma isn’t actually a unicorn. She’s a easy horse who loves music and performs in a band named The Rusty Buckets alongside along with her donkey associates, guitarist Otis (Will Forte) and drummer Reggie (Jon Heder). Thelma spends her days largely toting manure on a farm and enjoying music in her free time. However the band hasn’t been capable of get very far, being denied the chance to audition within the “Sparklepalooza Expertise Search” as a result of they simply don’t have “it.”

That each one adjustments when Thelma, enjoying round with a carrot, will get hit by a cloud of paint and glitter spilled by a passing truck. With the carrot caught to her snout, she now appears to be like like a unicorn, and resolves to alter her life by adopting a brand new, magical id. Rejecting the chance to make extra music along with her associates and blind music producer/guitarist Peggy Purvis (Maliaka Mitchell), she as a substitute will get caught up within the pop music world, exemplified by famous person whale artist Nikki (Ally Dixon) and her scantily clad back-up dancers The Pool Boys.

Thelma turns into Nikki’s opening act in Vegas and steals the highlight, attracting the eye of Nikki’s sleazy, ascot-wearing British supervisor Vic Diamond (Jermaine Clement, predictably hilarious) and the resentment of her loyal assistant (Edi Patterson), who tries to sabotage Thelma’s burgeoning profession. Alongside the way in which, Thelma, newly signed to “Enormous Sellout Information,” will get assigned a faux celeb boyfriend within the type of Danny Stallion (Fred Armisen), a horse whose hair fully covers his eyes and whose largest hit is “Right here Comes the Cud.”  

The movie’s satirical portrait of the excesses of the pop music world is constantly contemporary and humorous, and positively on level, with Thelma’s unique songs rejected by her file label in favor of ones created by algorithms. Including to the authenticity is Howard, whose soulful vocalizing is spotlighted in a number of terrific unique songs together with “Fireplace Inside” and “Simply as You Are.” She additionally proves a pure as a voice actor, investing her characterization with successful vulnerability and allure. Thelma isn’t the one character afforded a musical showcase, with Clement main the raucously enjoyable musical quantity “Three C’s to Success.”

The off-kilter character animation proves constantly interesting. And Clement’s Diamond is a hoot together with his ‘60s-era London mod garments and absurd facial hair. One of many movie’s funniest visible gags entails a truck driver, Crusty Trucker (funnily voiced by Zach Galifianakis), who demonstrates his bona fides as a champion clog dancer by exhibiting Thelma his grotesquely muscled calf.

As with so many animated movies, Thelma the Unicorn turns into overly busy in its last act, sacrificing a few of its sly wit to cluttered visible freneticism apparently designed to awaken small fry who could be succumbing to a sugar crash. However for many of its operating time, it’s a small-scale delight that balances quirky humor and heartfelt emotion to wonderful impact.