A down on his luck koala bear named Buster Moon (voice by Matthew McConaughey) is being hounded by his creditors and his run down theatre is in danger of being closed down and repossessed by the bank. He decides to save it from perdition by staging a singing contest where all sorts of animals join.
Rosita (Reese Witherspoon) is a piggie who is a devoted wife and an adoring mom to 25 little piglets. Ash (Scarlett Johansson) is a porcupine rocker who is crushed when dumped by her less talented boyfriend. Meena (Tori Kelly) is a bashful elephant who has great talent but has a hard time overcoming her stage fright. All of the actors here do their own singing and we’re really impressed most specially with Taron (“Stay with Me”), Tori (“Hallelujah”) and Seth (“My Way”, “Fly Me to the Moon”).
Buster Moon’s plans to capitalize on them ends up in disaster that nearly drowns them all and demolishes his theater’s entire building. But since this is a feel good movie, it’s just a build up to the inspiring and rousing finale that goes for nearly half an hour where all the animals follow their dreams and break loose with their vocal gifts in an inspiring toe-tapping concert full of awesome showstoppers.There are many good animated movies shown this year, including “Zootopia”, “Moana”, “Finding Dory”, “Trolls” and the little seen “Kubo and the Two Strings”. What sets “Sing” apart is that there are more than 60 songs used throughout the movie, from Irving Berlin and The Beatles to Stevie Wonder and Elton John to Beyonce and Carly Rae Jepsen. Most of them are heard for only a couple of minutes, but still gives the movie a really great soundtrack that should have eaten a big chunk of the budget to pay for all those royalties. And yes, there are some good new compositions, “Faith”, a duet between Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande and “Set It All Free” by Scarlett.
