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The animated movie "Sing" runs the entertainment spectrum from A to Z — in that it melds the worst elements of "American Idol" and "Zootopia" into a lifeless jukebox musical.
The story, what little there is of it, starts with Buster Moon, a koala who runs a ramshackle theater and has big dreams of producing the next stage hit. Buster is a manic, mile-a-minute talker, so choosing Matthew McConaughey — the laid-back "awright, awright, awright" guy — to voice the character could be the worst casting decision in animation history.
To keep his old theater alive, Buster comes up with an idea: a citywide singing competition, with the winner getting a $1,000 prize. But when his absent-minded lizard secretary, Miss Crawly (voiced by the movie's writer-director, Garth Jennings), accidentally adds two zeros to the prize as printed on the flier, everyone comes out to audition.
The story focuses on a handful of the top contenders:
• Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), a pig mom raising 25 piglets.
• Gunter (voiced by Nick Kroll), a flamboyant pig who becomes Rosita's unlikely singing partner.
• Mike (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), a mouse whose love for Sinatra extends to having mob ties.
• Ash (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), a punk-rock porcupine who's tired of being slighted by her band partner Lance (voiced by Beck Bennett).
• Johnny (voiced by Taron Egerton), a gorilla whose musical ambitions conflict with his father's bank-heist plans.
• And Meena (voiced by singer Tori Kelly), an elephant with a golden voice and crippling stage fright.
So how does Jennings, making his animation debut after the live-action movies "Son of Rambow" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," weave together six singers' stories with Buster's save-the-theater plot line, while making room for dozens of song cues? Very badly.
The singers never get enough time for more than the most perfunctory backstories, and Buster's efforts to cajole an aging diva moose, Nana (voiced by Jennifer Saunders, with Jennifer Hudson providing her singing voice), into bankrolling the contest are boring time-fillers.
Meanwhile, the songs seem to have been chosen more for their pop-chart status than for their appropriateness to the story. This is how we get random moments like Nana's rendition of The Beatles' "Golden Slumbers" or Rosita's glitter-filled cover of Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off." Worst of all may be the phony inspirational "the show must go on" moment, punctuated by Meena's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" — which prompted the thought that Cohen was lucky not to be around to hear it.
"Sing" is the latest effort from Illumination Entertainment, which gave us the Minions (and, with their new logo, never lets you forget it). The studio has long represented the lowest common denominator of animation, and "Sing" continues that slide to the bottom.
Twitter: @moviecricket —
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'Sing'
Animated animals sign up for a singing competition in a dull collection of clichéd story points.
Where • Theaters everywhere.
When • Opens Wednesday, Dec. 21.
Rating • PG for some rude humor and mild peril.
Running time • 108 minutes.