You gotta start somewhere right? Skydance didn’t have an animation wing until 2022. So, when you’re trying to get off the ground, what do you do? You take the Sony Animation route, and use the streamers to your advantage until you get your head above water. Swapped won’t have the Kpop Demon Hunters cultural grip that Sony got, but it’s heart is in the right place, and Netflix will give lying parents a chance to tell their young kids this is Hoppers, and still enjoy themselves.
It’s tough times for Pookoo Ollie (Michael B. Jordan) a chipmunk like creature scrounging for scraps on Pookoo island. The Javan birds have invaded, stealing all the Pookoo’s food. Ollie tries to fend them off with light, but gets chased into a hole left behind by the Dzo, legendary elephant like creatures that shapeshift and produce pods. What do the pods do? Well, when Ollie wishes to get away from the Javan, the pod…grants his wish (sort of), turning him into a Javan, and being able to understand creatures like Javan Ivy (Juno Temple) and Boogle (Tracy Morgan), a grouper like fish, who may or may not know where more pods are.
This movie looks fantastic. The minute we get Ollie’s flashback, we’re in CGI nature wonder. Young Ollie’s natural curiosity gives us this adorable sequence interacting with a young Javan, and this truly spectacular underwater adventure, as he learns about a world he didn’t know existed, oozing live and vivid colorscapes that’ll rise you out of lying down on your couch. The body swap idea is fantastic, because it lets the animators live a little bit in each character’s world. After our underwater adventure, we see through the eyes of a Pookoo, and their smellovision. Then its time to take to the sky with the Javan majestically soaring through the air to get a look at the even greater world that Ollie ever knew existed. Not all is happy either; we see the world through the darker side too, whether it be scary caves, or what happens when wolves learn how to make fire, and engulf the forest in a sea of horrifying reds. Swapped builds out its scope little by little, letting all the kids watching this movie grow in their imaginations in kind, not realizing just how far they’ve come until the beautiful finale.
I do wonder if we’ve reached the end of original movie storytelling after doing it for over a century now. As such, we’ve gotta mix things up: animation AND body swapping movie together. It’s not the most sophisticated storytelling on the planet, but there’s no way I’m going against a children’s story that teaches them empathy and tolerance are how we make the world a better place. Watching Ollie and Ivy learn about each other and their gifts is good old fashioned storytelling at its finest, usually culminating in something hella cool on onscreen. A little deeper there’s also a good reminder about how trust is earned, and open heart doesn’t mean willing ignorance either, but that message is for the adults. I’ll give them a little credit too, at one plot twist I definitely didn’t expect, but totally works for the story. I wish Swapped showed us a little more than told us about the characters when it comes to the emotional stuff, but there’s more good than bad here, and the message is genuinely sweet that I mostly just shrugged it off and happily waited for the next beautiful screenshot.
The trajectory is pointing up for Skydance I think. Swapped is better than their last two efforts, and Netflix should help them fly even higher. Hey, if you can keep parents from paying for that extra streaming subscription, mission accomplished! For the parents out there, Ollie is the Hopper, and the girl in Hoppers turned into a bird, that’s why she’s talking to Ollie like they’re friends. I hope that covers for you to save that $20 a month.