Ivan The Incredible

Ivan the Incredible Despite what the title says, the film is anything but incredible. Genre: Danish 3D Computer-animated Comedy Directed By: Michael Hegner Produced By: Phase 4 Films Starring: Thure Lindhardt Nicolaj Kopernikusr Karen-Lise Mynster Birthe Neumann Signe Egholm Olsen Karsten Bjarne Henriksen Esben Pretzmann Cecilie Stenspil David Bateson Distributed By: Nina Crone Erik Wilstrup Release Date: May 16, 2012 Runtime: 80 minutes (1 hour and 20 minutes) Country: Denmark Language: Danish Prequel: Freddy Frogface Sequel: Otto the Rhino

Ivan the Incredible, also known as Jelly T in Danish, is a computer-animated adventure family film created by Michael Hegner from a screenplay by Michael W. Horsten, based on the 1975 children's book Gummi-Tarzan by Ole Lund Kirkegaard. It is the second film in a trilogy of computer-animated films based on children's books by Kirkegaard, following Freddy Frogface (2011) and preceding Otto the Rhino (2013). Produced by Phase 4 Films, Ivan The Incredible was released in Danish theaters on May 16, 2012.

Plot

Ivan Olsen is constantly bullied at school, mostly by his father who is angry at his inability to be both smart and strong enough to protect himself. Lotte, a cute girl wishes to be a friend of his, but Ivan unwillingly disagrees believing he can't do anything at all. That evening, Ivan visits a witch who makes a potion that grants Ivan the ability to be the best at everything for 24 hours, which allows him to teach his bullies a valuable lesson. Sadly, that doesn't even impress Lotte during their race with the butcher's daughter, due to the fact that Ivan has actually posed a risk to her life so far and sent the butcher's daughter flying over the town, with Lotte claiming to have loved the normal wimpy Ivan (despite the fact that Ivan's father has told him he could find love if he'll be capable of everything). Lotte is now not willing to see Ivan, nor talk to him. However, things change back to normal and Ivan becomes his normal self again, so Lotte can come back to him eventually.

Why It's An Extraordinary Zero and Is NOT Incredible

1. For obvious starters, this film suffers from several clichés and unoriginal ideas, in that it is about a character being mistreated by everyone (more on that later) and tries to do something to get respect, most of which had already been done in previous media and are done TEN TIMES as better.
2. Ivan the Incredible is also a blatant rip-off of Chicken Little, right down to the characters being portrayed in a very similar manner (E.G. main character is a butt-monkey, there's a father who is a jerk-face, and a female schooler (Kim) who is a bully).
3. Incredibly ugly character models, most of which are ripped out of Freddy Frogface, another infamous movie that was previously made. The character models also look like they are ripped off from Barnyard.
4. Getting the character models out of the way, the art style and character designs also look ugly and uninspired, with Ivan in particular looking the worst.
5. To then get the fifth and most importune Elephant-In-The-Room: Much like Happy New Year, Charlie Brown, I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown, Chicken Little (which, ironically, also shares a very similar premise), and the Fred Trilogy Films, Ivan the Incredible is EXTREMELY mean-spirited as Ivan is CONSTANTLY mistreated, bullied, and/or abused throughout most of the film as well as being hated by nearly everyone for no reason whatsoever; also much like the aforementioned films, this treatment is unwarrantable to Ivan as he did absolutely nothing wrong to be treated like this.
6. There are a few questionable moments throughout the film that lack logic, such as:
   • Meat is shown to be rubbery like tires, despite them being more solid.
   • Crows are colored blue instead of being black.
7. Mean-spirited and unlikable characters, with the worst and most infamous offender being Ivan's father, who is without a doubt, one of the single WORST characters in this entire movie; he constantly rubs Ivan's face of how "he's the best at everything", forces Ivan to climb up a tree in front of the ENTIRE crowd to impress his rival the butcher, cruelly humiliates Ivan by angry calling him a Jelly Tarzan in front of everyone after the latter fell off the tree and not caring that Ivan might be hurt, which causes both Kim and the crowed to laugh at poor Ivan, and after finding out that Ivan has the ability to be the best at everything, he uses him to be famous. Ivan's Father is also a basic "I'm the greatest at everything" when in truth he's actually a loser, a plot-point that has also been done previously and have been done better, you can easily tell how this plot is going to play out from the FIRST ACT of the film.
   • Give Buck Cluck some points of credit, at least he showed SOME points of respect to Chicken Little and never rubbed his success in Chicken Little's face.
8. There's also this constant talk about Tarzan by most of the characters, mostly Ivan's Father, and they never shut up about it.
9. Terrible Marketing: Due to the fact that there was only ONE Trailer for Ivan the Incredible, a lot of people were actually unaware of the movie's existence, which also explains why it flopped at the box office.
10. Very poor animation (while far from the worst looking computer-animated film that was made in 2012) that looks very sloppy, most of which looks like a PlayStation 2 and Original Xbox game made in the early 2000s, given that previous animated films that were also made in 2012 (E.G. Hotel Transylvania, Wreck-It Ralph, Rise of the Guardians, etc.) look miles better than this; this is just unexceptionable.
    • It also looks way too similar to much better 3D media that came beforehand, namely Toy Story, Jimmy Neutron, ReBoot and the aforementioned Barnyard.
11. The character animations, while also far from the worst looking, also look very sloppy and even slow paced, moving like something out of a Beta Test from the computer, some of which move like the characters from The Groovenians.
12. Very poor lip-syncing (though not nearly as bad as another film also made in 2012) from characters' mouths not moving in line with the words that they're saying to characters not even moving their mouths when they even talk in the first place.
    • The reason for this is because Ivan the Incredible was dubbed, as this film was made in Danish called Jelly T and was also originally made in Denmark, so while it would make sense, there is a slight problem, the original film was already in English (much like The Magic Voyage, Doogal (which is the dubbed version of The Magic Roundabout) and The Little Panda Fighter), so there's no reason for Ivan The Incredible to be dubbed in the first place.
13. Despite the fact Ivan the Incredible is a family-made film, it has many moments that make it feel more like an adult movie due to the film's mean-spirited nature of how Ivan is constantly being bullied by Kim and her two friends and mistreated by his father in one of the most mean-spirited ways possible, with the first 45 minutes being about poor Ivan constantly being bullied by the school bullies, principal, and most infamously, his own father.
14. There's a very pointless sequence where Ivan, after being given the potion to be the "best at everything", has a bike race with Kim. It adds nothing to the plot and is nothing but a cruel plot-device to have Lotte backlash Ivan for something he had the right to do; it can also easily be removed, and the film's plot would largely be the same.
    • Speaking of which, there's a rather inappropriate scene during the race where before Ivan slides underneath the witch's tractor trailer, the camera cuts to underneath the her underside, where you can clearly see her panties.
15. There is a platter of plot holes that are never explained:
    • Why does Ivan's father completely trash all of his son's stuff to make an office for himself?
    • What happened to Ivan's mother, and why did she leave them?
    • Why doesn't Lotte just stand up for Ivan and just wait until the last few minutes of the film to do so?
    • Where did the witch come from, and why is she here?
    • Why are Kim and her two friends bullying Ivan; what did Ivan do to deserve this?
      • Also, why does literally EVERYONE hate Ivan?
    • How come Ivan only has objects to talk to as friends?
    • How the heck does the witch have magic potions, and why does she have them?
    • Why couldn't the teacher just simply help Ivan read?
16. Absolutely terrible pacing. It takes 45 minutes into the film where the plot actually gets going, and keep in mind, Ivan the Incredible is 80 minutes long (1 Hour and 20 Minutes); therefore, the actual plot doesn't start until mid-way in the film, thus making Ivan the Incredible very rushed. Sound familiar?
    • The pacing is also very poor considering the fact that it makes this film drag on for way too long, and other times goes so fast that it's hard to keep track of what's going on.
17. No real villains. The only ones that could be considered a villain would be Kim and her two friends and Ivan's father, yet the formers barely appear in the film; the latter later on reforms after getting some earned comprehends from Ivan, more on that in a bit.
18. In addition to Ivan the Incredible being mean-spirited, the film itself is also really repetitive as during the first half of it, the plot is nothing but Ivan getting bullied, his father being an asswipe to him, and his creepy delusions, and it goes on and on THREE TIMES until the second half after Ivan finds a witch as explained in the #16 segment.
19. Misleading box art: One of the fronts of the box arts shows what appears to be an explosion in the background, yet it never appears in the film.
    • Also, one of the box arts shows a gym manager (simply called Coach) and a dalmatian dog, leading us to believe that they would also be the main characters, but in the case of the Gym Manager, he only appears in the one scene where he "trains" Ivan and is never seen or mentioned again after kicking Ivan out; in the case with the dalmatian, he only appears in Ivan and Kim's race near the end to take Kim's sausage, and after being fling off and taking Kim's sausage, he too is also never seen or mentioned again.
    • Additionally, despite what one of the box arts says, Ivan doesn't do anything heroic at any point in the film.
20. Near the end of the film, Ivan (after realizing how much of a jerk-face his father is and sparing the Butcher, who is Kim's father) does snap and give his father some deserved comprehends for mooching off of Ivan by flinging his father up to a tree and forcing him to climb up the tree in front of the entire crowd as he did to Ivan earlier, as well as calling him a "liar", "yellow belly", and "Jelly Tarzan Coach", thus leading Ivan to given VERY satisfying karma on his father after everything he did to him, but after Ivan angry kicks the tree, it caused the branch that Ivan's father is hanging on to break, which also cause the latter to fall hard to the ground and whimpers after seeing Ivan ferociously glare at him, Ivan out-of-nowhere immediately feels sorry for him, takes him back home and apologized stating that he "didn't mean any of those things he said.", making that scene pointless.
21. There are many scenes that don't add up to anything, such example goes to the school segments where Ivan's at class, it plays very little in the film's narrative and much like the Bike Race, can easily be removed from the film.
22. This whole film in general not only treats Ivan like a door mat throughout most of the film, but also in a very similar scenario to the "Donald's Gift" segment of Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas and Meygan's segment of Bratz Kidz: Sleep-Over Adventure, has the nerve to treat Ivan like the "bad guy", from both how Lotte gives him an angered rant after Ivan gives Kim some well-earned karma by both beating her in a bike race and using a Fishing Pole to grab and throw Kim across the yard, and how Ivan reacted after given his Father some well-earned comeuppance as well, Ivan is treated so much like both an "antagonist" and a "bully" that it's utterly depressing.
    • Yes, from a perspective, Ivan does get a bit too cocky on how he uses his Powers earlier in the film by using Lotte's bike to race agents Kim which cause it to break, and does go a bit too far by also flinging Kim though the air, but given how cruel and utter jack-asses both Kim and Ivan's Father were to Ivan though out the first half of the film(and all of this was BEFORE Ivan even gain his powers mind you), that's all completely hampered, so Ivan had a justifiable and good reason to act like this even though they are a little on the extreme side. There for, Ivan is being punished for standing up to himself, so this is unexceptionable.
23. There are many characters that don't play well in the film, with one of them being Lotte's "boyfriend" Carsten. Aside from a few appearances, he barely impacts the film's narrative and is never seen or mentioned again after the climax.
24. Poor grasp of source material to Jelly Tarzan. In the original book, a Crane Operator befriends a shy Danish school boy who is bullied by his father who is also a Tarzan fan, yet in this film, the Crane Operator never appears and/or meets Ivan; instead, it's Lotte that meets Ivan.
25. In a rather interesting but very infamous scenario, because Ivan spared Kim's father, you would think that Kim would have a change of heart, befriend Ivan, and no longer want to bully him anymore, yet after finding out that Ivan is back to normal, for literary no reason what-so-ever Kim (alongside her two friends) decided to bully Ivan again, completely ignoring that Ivan had the kind heart to spare the father of the kid who bullied him.
    • It also gives out a bad lesson for kids, in that it is OK for kids to bully other kids, even if they stood up for you.
26. Terrible Ending that comes off EXTREMELY insulting: As Ivan gets bullied, Lotte comes in and stands up for him, but that unfortunately leads her to also get bullied by Kim and her two friends as well, and after both Ivan and Lotte are dropped into the sink by the three bullies, they hold hands, indicating that they are in love. This part is trying to convince that it would be a very happy ending; it's actually kind of horrifying if you think about it as now both Ivan and Lotte are going to get bullied forever, and what's even worse is that the witch leaves, so Ivan can't get his ability to be the best at everything; basically, he's screwed.
27. The film also teaches a selection of four really bad morals that are taught to children and/or adults, all of which insults adults and/or kids who have been previously bullied and/or abused by other kids and/or his or her parents.
    • Its first poorly made moral states that you should never stand up for anyone who is being bullied and/or abused by someone, as shown by Lotte not doing anything as she watches Ivan getting backlash by his father and/or getting bullied by Kim and her two friends during the first half of the film.
    • In a very similar vain to the two infamous Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends episodes "Everyone Knows It's Bendy" and "Imposters Home for Um... Make 'Em Up Pals", it's second moral states that being a bully to others is okay and that standing up for yourself is wrong, which is shown when Ivan uses his new-found powers to stand up to Kim, only for him to be backlashed by Lotte.
    • The third moral states that it is OK for you and/or anybody else to be abused by his/her and/or your parents than to become an abusive parent and prove them wrong. This is shown by Ivan feeling bad for giving his father some karma after all the misery the latter caused on his own son.
    • And lastly, the fourth badly taught moral states that it's also better for you and/or anybody else to be bullied than standing up for yourself, such as the after-mention ending were after Ivan goes back to normal, the bullies decide to bully Ivan again, and now both he and Lotte are going to get bullied.

Incredible Qualities That Are an Extraordinary Hero

1. The soundtrack is decent.
2. There are some likable characters such as Ivan, despite his bad design, Lotte, and the witch.
3. The voice acting is fairly good and probably the only polished thing about the film.
4. Some jokes can be funny.
5. The hand-drawn animations during Ivan's father's backstory segments look fantastic and give a Hanna Barbera cartoon-like tone.
6. Despite the bad morals, Ivan the Incredible does teach a really good moral, in that it is to be yourself.

Reception

Ivan The Incredible has received extremely negative reviews as well as been universally panned by fans and critics alike, with many fans criticizing the film's mean-spirited nature, poor animation, unlikable characters and the film overall being deemed way too similar to one of Walt Disney's most infamous animation eight years ago, Chicken Little. Its often considered as one of the worst movies ever made and it also has a 4.3 on IMDb.

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