Viva Kids studio brings The Boonie Bears, a colorful children's movie, to the Big Screen with some beautiful animation, fantastical creatures, and a magical adventure that kids might enjoy. The family-friendly film opens June 14, 2019 and on DirecTV. You can see my full movie review at Movie Review Mom. Here are a few highlights. Things I liked: Beautiful animation, especially of nature. The leaves, rocks, and plants had such great detail. Some of the animated people looked so real when they were in "their" world. In fact, I had to look closely because I thought it might actually be live-action mixed with animation. Impressive. Voice talents include Mario Lopez and Josh Peck. The creative world building reminded me of the movie Avatar. Fantastica was really pretty and wonderous. Some original songs. The floating mushroom creatures were adorable and kind of reminded me of Spirited Away and Avatar. The Matrix-looking fight scene made me laugh out loud. Young girls will be inspired by the strong female lead. I like that Vick reads the book "The Road To Success" in order to improve himself. Talk to your kids about how they think they could become better each day. You can even continue the conversation by sharing some of your favorite self-development material with them.

Things I didn't like: This movie makes you remember why Pixar, Illumination, and Disney are so great. The animation was really good except for the mouths and voices being disconnected. That was super distracting. The voices of some of the characters were strange and didn't match the characters' appearances or personality at all. Maybe that was a deliberate attempt at humor, but it just felt off. Some of the editing was choppy. There is a bizarre musical montage with forced tears. The pacing felt really off. I'm writing the word "off" a lot in this review, eh? It takes 39 minutes before you get to see Fantastica. Some of the characters' motivations are unclear and even confusing. It sounded like an old Saturday morning cartoon. Not in a good way. There is a character with an Iron Man-like jacket that seemed super random. Some things are simply not explained which could be confusing for kids or frustrating for parents. Some of the characters at the beginning completely disappear and we never see them again.