Woody Woodpecker (2017)

Woody Woodpecker
A live-action/CGI train wreck of Walter Lantz's most iconic cartoon creation.
Genre: Slapstick comedy Directed by: Alex Zamm Produced by: Mike Elliott Written by: William Robertson Alex Zamm Daniel Altiere Steven Altiere Based on: Woody Woodpecker Starring: Eric Bauza Timothy Omundson Graham Verchere Thaila Ayala Jordana Largy Scott McNeil Adrian Glynn McMorran Emily Holmes Distributed by: Universal Pictures Release date: October 5, 2017 (Brazil) February 6, 2018 (United States) Runtime: 91 minutes Country: United States Budget: $10 million Box office: $15.3 million Franchise: Woody Woodpecker Sequel: Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp

"At last, this movie said something right! This film is (angrily imitates Woody's laugh) a-a-a-awful, a-a-a-awful!"

— Nostalgia Critic is his review of Woody Woodpecker

Woody Woodpecker is a live-action/CGI, slapstick comedy, family film made in 2017 and is the first film in the Woody Woodpecker film series. This film is based on the 1940's animated series created by Walter Lantz, Woody Woodpecker.

Plot

In the Pine Grove forest in Washington, Woody detects brothers Nate and Ottis Grimes, two taxidermist poachers who attempt to capture and sell him for money which causes them to tranquilize each other. In Seattle, Lance Walters, a real estate lawyer, gets fired, after a video of him claiming wildlife conservation is unprofitable goes viral. He tells his glamorous girlfriend, Vanessa, that he intends to build an investment home on a large piece of property located near the Canadian border, left to him by his grandfather. Lance's ex-wife Linda leaves their son Tommy with him and Vanessa since she needs to care for her hospitalized father in Philadelphia.

At the Pine Grove forest, Lance, Tommy, and Vanessa meet park ranger Samantha Bartlett. As Lance and Vanessa unpack, Tommy goes into the forest for a walk. There, he discovers and befriends Woody, after he gives him peanut butter cookies. Woody visits the family at lunchtime, and eats almost all of the food. Lance tries to shoo Woody away, but he accidentally wrecks the table and hits Vanessa in the face with a broom. The next morning, construction on the investment home begins, prompting an angered Woody to constantly cause chaos at the site. Later, in a nearby town, Tommy befriends a young musician named Jill, who persuades him to join her band in the annual Firefly Festival. Tommy is then saved from two bullies by Woody.

As days pass, Lance grows more frustrated, because of Woody's constant annoyance, mischief, chaos, and destruction of his project, and he goes to confront Samantha at the ranger station. She reveals Woody is an endangered species known as the pileated red-crowned woodpecker, which was thought to be extinct for 100 years and Native Americans saw as a god of mischief and chaos. Lance continues with his work, but Vanessa leaves him after Woody blows up their RV with her inside. Lance tries to get Nate and Ottis, who secretly still plan to sell Woody, to get rid of him, but he keeps outwitting them. Samantha advises Lance to make peace with Woody. Lance attempts to surrender to Woody, by giving him cookies, Woody agrees to let him and the workers continue with their construction, as long as he is given food every day. Eventually, the investment home is completed, despite excessive payment and extended scheduling.

At the town's Firefly Festival, Tommy and Jill's drummer Lyle comes down with food poisoning, prompting Woody to take over using a homemade drum kit. The performance was a success, and Lance is delighted to hear that Woody gave Tommy support. Concluding that having humans around again isn't a bad thing, Woody heads back to the investment home and carves a mural above the fireplace. However, as he signs his name into the carving, he accidentally burns the house down, after hitting exposed wiring. Horrified by his mistake, he flies back to his tree. Thinking Woody was luring him into a false sense of security and furious that he would do this when he was just starting to like him, Lance calls Nate and Ottis, who cut down his tree and tase him unconscious. As they leave, Tommy castigates his father for his actions and runs away. He then forms a plan to rescue Woody and heads to Grimes' shack with Jill and Lyle, as the brothers try to sell Woody at an online black market auction. Lance finds the mural that Woody had created. Realizing his mistake, he enlists Samantha's help and they set out to find both Tommy and Woody. However, the entire gang is captured by the brothers. As Nate aims a tranquilizer on Woody, Lance tilts his cage towards Woody's and frees him. After attacking the brothers, Woody chases them as they attempt to flee to the Canadian border. He carves a hole in the middle of the bridge, and the brothers fall into the river below, where they are later arrested.

Later, Lance apologizes to Woody for not knowing that the house fire was an accident and therefore replaces Woody's cut-down tree with a birdhouse. Woody accepts both the gift and the gang as his surrogate family.

Why This Movie's A-A-A-Awful, A-A-A-Awful

1. There is a significant lack of understanding of the source material.
   • Apart from Woody himself, none of the supporting characters from the Woody Woodpecker cartoons, including Wally Walrus, Buzz Buzzard, Miss Meany, Andy Panda, and Chilly Willy, make an appearance or are mentioned in this film. Consequently, Woody could be substituted with any other cartoon character or a regular animal without affecting the story.
   • Although Woody is the titular character and receives a significant amount of screen time, the film devotes more attention to Lance and Tommy, which relegates Woody to what seems like a supporting role.
   • The human characters appear to never hear or understand Woody, despite him being an anthropomorphic character similar to Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, and Sonic the Hedgehog. Consequently, he should possess the ability to communicate with humans, as he does in his cartoons where he interacts seamlessly with Miss Meany, a human character.
     • Owing to this and the earlier mentioned absence of other Woody Woodpecker characters, the film portrays Woody as a typical woodpecker, albeit with the appearance and voice of the legendary character.
2. Woody has evolved from a mischievous, zany, and crazy yet good-natured woodpecker into an obnoxious, mean-spirited, and malicious psychopath who tortures his adversaries.
   • While Woody was known as a mischievous screwball prankster in the original cartoons, particularly in the early 1940s, he would only retaliate against those who deserved it. Thus, being malicious and sadistic, to the point of tormenting an innocent family simply for the perception of camping, is indeed out of character for him.
   • Woody's voice is also very inconsistent, it goes way too fast, yet it goes way too slow. It also sounds like it was pitch-shifted.
3. The CGI animation for Woody himself, while decent-looking, looks a bit outdated and makes him look more like a character out of an old GameCube/PlayStation 2 game. An example of this is during his "wooshing" sequence, which from the way it's animated, makes it look more like Firecracker popsicles, there are other animation issues as well:
   • To begin with, Woody has out-of-sync speech, which is surprising for a major big-budget Hollywood feature film production.
   • When he flies, he seems to stretch strangely, and feathers often enter inside the character's head. Not to mention the animation that has been reused countless times.
   • In addition, not only does Woody fly, but he also levitates even without flapping his wings, simlar to Rocket J. Squrriel from the Rocky and Bullwinkle series.
   • In a scene from the movie, when Woody is poking Lance Walters in his bed at night, it looks like a Photoshop clipping is too light for the scene, which gives a very amateurish look to the animation.
   • On that topic, since none of the Woody Woodpecker cartoons' supporting cast are anthropomorphic animals like Wally Walrus, Buzz Buzzard, Chilly Willy or Andy Panda ever appear in this film (see WIA #16), Woody is the only character in the entire film who is computer-animated, hence making his appearance in an entire live-action-based environment look incredibly out-of-place in this film. Not helping is the poor quality CGI animation used on the character as mentioned above.
   • To add salt to the wound, this film was made in 2017, and films made before Woody Woodpecker look way better than this.
4. Poor eye contact between Woody and the human characters.
5. The narrative is quite generic and foreseeable, featuring a cartoon character encountering a typical human counterpart, a concept repeatedly explored in prior movies such as 'The Smurfs', 'Sonic the Hedgehog', 'Yogi Bear', among others.
6. Nate and Ottis Grimes, the main villains of the film, are incredibly lame antagonists as they barely do anything throughout most of the film, it's not until the climax after they manage to capture Woody were they actually do something substantial.
7. Odd use of pop culture references, such as Woody doing the classical "NOT!" at the poachers early on in the film, even though Woody Woodpecker (as in the 1940's animated series) aired 50 years before that pop culture reference was even made.
8. The film presents multiple missed opportunities that, if seized, could have significantly enhanced it.
   • In the film, Woody sporadically breaks the fourth wall by addressing the audience directly and pausing the action, suggesting that the Woody Woodpecker movie might feature clever fourth-wall-breaking moments leading to inventive gags. However, apart from these instances of Woody speaking to the viewers and a particular scene where the fourth wall is shattered as Vanessa screams after a prank by Woody disrupts her hair, the trope is not extensively explored.
   • In the early stages of the film, Woody Woodpecker forms a friendship with Tommy. This relationship had the potential to produce a series of creative and humorous gags, showcasing Woody and Tommy engaging in amusing antics, along with heartwarming scenes highlighting their growing bond. However, apart from their initial meeting and a moment where Woody saves Tommy from two bullies, their interactions throughout the movie are minimal.
   • In the film, Tommy encounters a young girl named Jill relatively early, but apart from the band scene, their interactions are minimal until the climax, and even then, their exchanges are limited. The narrative could have been enriched with touching scenes of Tommy and Jill bonding and developing a romantic relationship, interspersed with Woody's humorous escapades, creating a harmonious mix of comedy and tender moments.
     • Speaking of which, both Jill and Lyle (another one of Tommy's friends) are somewhat treated poorly, as they barely appear in the film, and after the scene where Lance rescues Woody after they get captured, they disappear and are never seen or mentioned again. And keep in mind, they're last seen in the cage with Tommy.
   • During his day in the town after meeting Jill, Tommy meets two bullies that have a problem with him being at "their town", yet after their "defeat" by Woody, they too also disappear and are never seen or mentioned again for the rest of the film. They could be removed from the film and it would impact nothing, the two bullies could have been recurring villains that appear throughout the movie and try to bully Tommy and his friends, only for them to be stopped by Woody.
     • Also, given that the poachers appear halfway through the film and that they want to capture Woody, the bullies could have teamed up with them as their way to get revenge on Woody for humiliating them throughout the film, yet that never gets utilized.
   • Halfway into the film, there's a Firefly Festival set in the fair. Seeing as how creative and frantic it is, this part could have shown Woody doing many goofy antics with Tommy and his friends in the fair, and would have made some creative and hilarious gags that involve the fair like cotton candy, roller coasters, Ferris wheels, etc., yet aside from the scene was Ottis eats the ice cream with Woody's poop on it not much happens besides a band and firefly scene.
9. Throughout the film, Woody plays pranks on Lance, Vanessa, and the workers to prevent them from building the house, and while some can be funny, he goes way too far with some of his pranks, from filling up the SUV that Lance and Vanessa are in with wet cement, to electrocuting Lance with an electric net when the latter teams up with the poachers halfway in the film, to literary blowing up the family's RV with gas while Vanessa was still in it.
10. In a similar vain to Ivan The Incredible and Justin and the Knights of Valour, both of which were respectively made six to five years earlier, the marketing of the Woody Woodpecker film was very poor when compared to many other films that were released before this, since a lot of people were unaware of the movie's existence. This is also due to how the Woody Woodpecker film only aired in Brazil. Heck, unlike the previous films that were also made, it never even got a big screen in theaters and went straight to DVD when the Woody Woodpecker film was released in North America, which may explain why this movie bombed hard at the box office.
11. Bland characterizations with the human characters aside from Lance and Tommy.
12. Plot holes:
    • What happen to Woody's parents and grandfather?
    • When did Tommy and/or Jill meet Lyle?
    • Why do the bullies not want anyone to enter their town?
    • What happened to the owl after Tommy and Co. escape the Grim Brothers' hideout?
    • Instead of hiding in his house in fear, why couldn't Woody just simply tell Lance that he didn't mean to burn down the house and that it was an accident?
    • Why can't Woody just swim in between the cage's bars to escape?
    • What exactly happened to Jill and Lyle after they were last seen in the cage with Tommy?
13. Laughable dialogue from most of the characters, such as when Tommy remarks to Lance on his unwillingness to spend quality time with him with this line, "I know you don't want me here. The only kid you want in your life is your girlfriend", disturbingly implicating references to pedophilia (even though Lance's girlfriend Vanessa is clearly a grown adult of consenting age like Lance himself), as well as Woody calling Tommy his "BFF" which he refers to as his "Bringer of Free Food".
14. Despite the film being made for kids, it has characters swearing too often throughout, which makes it feel like a PG-13-rated film since that amount of obscenities is something you'd expect from Fun Size. Sound familiar?
15. The movie has a horrid message about family and the environment. Halfway into the film, Lance bribes Woody with some peanut butter cookies, and does the same thing to let the building finish and knock down the forest, which is revolting and senseless, and automatically cancels the lesson about tree felling. Woody even says that he left them alone because they "paid" him, which can be a really bad influence on children in that bribery fixes everything.
16. Very poor attempts at humor, most of which come from gross fart and poop jokes from Woody, with some particular examples being the scene where Woody poops on Ottis' ice cream, and the latter eats it and enjoys it, which, when he does, Woody is disgusted, the scene where Woody poops on Lance's girlfriend, and the scene where Woody farts out his signature laugh.
17. Terrible acting, with the exceptions of Eric Bauza, Graham Verchere, Jordana Largy, Chelsea Miller, and Jakob Davies.
18. Many anticlimactic moments, such as the scene where Tommy and his friends invade the poachers' hideout, the latter group finds them and Nate (the lead poacher) tells Tommy and co. to leave without harming them.
19. Woody's backstory, although detailed, is overly complex, seems out of place, and is quite dark for a children's movie.
20. Bland filler segments that pad out the film's runtime.
21. Very bland climax, it takes a whooping 2 minutes until Lance saves Woody. Not to mention that it's a rehash of the intro segment.
22. False advertising: The film's promotional trailers, as well as the promotional poster (seen above), make the film seem as if Woody is the main protagonist of the film, especially since the said poster has him taking up about 80% of the image while the live-action human characters appear much further away behind him, but the film itself focuses more on the human characters than Woody himself, especially in the first half of the film.
    • Speaking of which, Vanessa is shown in the poster, so it's also made to believe that she would have some roles, yet after the RV's destruction, Vanessa leaves and much like both Jill, Lyle, and the two bullies, she disappears and is never seen or mentioned again, so most of it centers around Lance and Tommy.
23. Despite the film being mainly targeted at Brazilian audiences and the inclusion of Brazilian actress Thaila Ayala as Vanessa (hence why the film received a theatrical release only in Brazil and nowhere else, as mentioned above), not even Brazilian audiences like this film. You know you've made a big mistake when even the audience of your target country hates your film.
24. Consequently, this film even succeeded in ruining the Woody Woodpecker series' reputation as a whole and therefore defaming the film's popularity in Brazil, which was brought down to zero.
25. Bad release date: This film came out on October 5, 2017, months after other live-action films such as Thor: Ragnarok, Logan, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and so much more came out before Woody Woodpecker.
26. Its sequel, despite being an improvement over this movie, is still mediocre.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Decent soundtrack.
2. There are a few funny moments.
3. While it can be considered cruel, the scene where the poachers knock out Woody with a tranquilizer gun after they cut down his tree and corner him is super satisfying and justifiable after all the mayhem that he had caused.
4. There are a select few heartwarming moments, such as Woody making a mural of him, Tommy, and Lance.
5. After the film's credits end, there's a special post-credits scene which is a cartoon episode of the original Woody Woodpecker series, which is neat.
6. It's nice to see Woody Woodpecker making a return after 82 years of his cartoons.
7. Woody's animation, despite being a bit outdated, looks pretty decent along with his character design.
8. Graham Verchere, Jordana Largy, Chelsea Miller, and Jakob Davies do very solid jobs as Tommy Walters, Samantha Barlett, Jill Ferguson, and Lyle, respectively.
   • Despite being pitch-shifted, Eric Bauza does a surprisingly good job voicing Woody.
9. It's recently-released sequel, while still mediocre is a good improvement, as it does manage to give Woody more screen time, attenuate the toilet humor, and bring back classic characters like Buzz Buzzard and Wally Walrus.
   • Woody Woodpecker also got his original personality back in the sequel and written better and Buzz Buzzard and Wally Walrus are still likable as usual in the seque;

Production

In November 2011, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment planned an animated Woody Woodpecker feature film. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky (King of the Hill) were in talks to develop a story, but in July 2013, Illumination canceled the project, likely due to the negative reception surrounding Hop.

In October 2013, Bill Kopp announced that Universal and Illumination hired him to direct an animated feature film with three interwoven stories. The project was put on hold and then canceled, as Chris Meledandri confirmed that its concept was too thin for an 85-minute movie.

On July 13, 2016, Cartoon Brew reported that Universal 1440 Entertainment was filming a live-action/CGI hybrid Woody Woodpecker film, following the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks. It was reported that Zamm was in discussions with Universal executives about what he was interested in directing and co-writing with William Robertson next after The Little Rascals Save the Day, and expressed interest in a Woody Woodpecker movie. Director and co-writer Alex Zamm has also watched all 200 Woody Woodpecker cartoons, in preparation for the movie. For cost-effective reasons, it was agreed upon for the film to have a more singular approach with Woody Woodpecker being the one surreal element as a photorealistic character in the real world. Filming began in June 2016 and ended later in July of that year. Filming was done in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. The primary audience in mind for the film was that of Brazil. The cartoon has been broadcast in the country for, 2017, 38 years. The Brazilian newspaper Folha Vitória stated that the series was popular ("com ótima audiência"). In December 2016, a teaser trailer for the film was leaked by Universal Pictures Brazil with the Brazilian Portuguese dub; a trailer for the original English version later premiered in America on December 13, 2017.

Release

The film was first released theatrically in Brazil (under the name of Pica-Pau: O Filme) on October 5, 2017.

In the week of the premiere of the film, a person/people dressed in a costume of the character came to Brazil and visited several cities such as the capital Brasília, Manaus, Olinda, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. The highlight visit was when some scenes from the episode "Niagara Fools" were reproduced in the Iguaçu Falls.

Home media

It was released in the United States and Canada on DVD, Digital HD, and Netflix on February 6, 2018, and on Blu-ray on September 4, 2018. The movie was launched in direct-to-video format in the United States and around the world on that day. In the United Kingdom, the movie was distributed through British home video distributor Dazzler Media, under license from Universal.

Reception

Critical response

Reception of the film was generally negative. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 13% approval rating based on eight reviews. Common Sense Media rated the film one out of five stars, stating, "Inanely cruel villains, an unoriginal story, ham-handed performances, and reliance on farts and burps are the low lights of this awkward effort to bring back a less-than-engaging cartoon bird." Jodi Smith of entertainment website Pajiba gave the film a negative review, stating "If I was a super villain and I wanted to harm all of the children of the world, I would fund and release a movie like Woody Woodpecker." Conversely, Fernando Alvarez of the Argentine newspaper Clarín referred to the film as "... effective entertainment for a young audience..." in a positive review.

Box office

As of March 11, 2018, Woody Woodpecker has grossed $15.3 million. It debuted at $1.5 million, finishing second at the Brazilian box office behind Blade Runner 2049. The film increased by +45.4% in its second weekend, moving to first place with $2.1 million. The film was never released theatrically in countries other than Latin America.

Sequel

In September 2021, it was announced that Universal began filming a sequel to the film called Woody Woodpecker Goes Camping in Victoria, Australia. Filming wrapped on December 12, 2021. The sequel is directed by Jon Rosenbaum and is produced by Jon Kuyper and was released on Netflix on April 12, 2024.

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