'Blue's Big City Adventure' Review: A Dizzying Delight
Magic and mystery. Those are the two components Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues franchise were built on nearly three decades ago. They also happen to be the two things that can make a single trip to New York City a gamble. One sidewalk or subway ride can lead to a positive life-changing experience…or a mugging. Fortunately, statistics favor the former. However, that optimism is one of many reasons Paramount’s latest live-action animated hybrid film Blue’s Big City Adventure works, despite treading very familiar territory.
The film is an extension of the franchise’s current show Blue’s Clues & You, which launched in 2019. It follows the current host (and Blue’s new companion) Josh as he travels to New York City to audition for a Broadway musical. There’s only one problem though. After arriving in the city with Blue, Josh realizes he left his “handy dandy notebook” at home, which has the address to the audition. Following the format of the show, he scours the city for clues in hopes of making it to the venue on time. Along the way he encounters several new and old faces, including the series’ former hosts Steve and Joe.
While cute, in terms of story, the film is derivative of far too many other live-action/animated hybrid films. Last year, Paramount released another film about a colorful dog in the Big Apple too: Clifford the Big Red Dog. Granted, both stories are polar opposites; however, the entire idea of seeing animated characters survive in the real world has become too much of a cliche. From Dolph Lundgren’s rarely-discussed Masters of the Universe in the 1980s to HBO’s recently buried Tom & Jerry reboot, the idea feels like the cinematic equivalent to “jumping the shark,” except it’s unclear if it’s really attracting more viewers.
Fortunately, the film’s real-world gimmick isn’t its only selling point. The film was no doubt designed to be a nostalgia-fueled romp that bridges the gap between its newer audience members and its older ones, who are also most likely parents to those new members. Unlike most other modern family films though, there aren’t any adult jokes sprinkled in as a wink to the parents who have to sit through. Instead, the film doubles down on its innocence and wholesomeness to become a truly uplifting experience.
Now, that’s not to say there isn’t some occasional cringe, but the film never stops being fun to watch or engage with. In fact, the first time Steve comes on-screen and calls out to you, even as an adult it’s hard not to want to answer back. It’s not easy to love this film, but this film has so much love for its audience that you can’t help but sport a smile.
No amount of smiles can make up for how flawed the film is on a technical level though. That’s not a dig at the numerous CGI characters either. They actually look pretty good. Instead, it’s a criticism of the rough and inconsistent editing choices. For example, the first musical number that Josh and Blue perform when they get to New York City is fine. However, halfway through, the sequence switches to an evening backdrop. While this shouldn’t matter, considering that the entire film revolves around Josh having to make an audition by a specific time, it does. Did he miss the audition? Did he come to New York for no reason? Before you can even properly process those questions, the sequence ends and it’s daylight again. Still, that’s only scratching the surface when it comes to the film’s inconsistencies.
There are also numerous instances where long shots, medium shots, and close-ups do not match or sync up. At one point a long shot of Josh talking cuts to a medium shot of him smiling. Later on, a medium shot of the character looking at the camera cuts to a close-up of his head turned away. Of all the cardinal sins of filmmaking broken, nothing is worse than the frequent use/overuse of Dutch angles. Not to say that your neck will snap from how many times the camera tilts over the course of the film, but what starts off as a quirky technique slowly becomes a prerequisite for every scene. It’s not distracting, but it is dizzying. And it makes the film feel a bit trippier than it ultimately is.
Overall, there is a lot more good than bad. Cameos from the show’s original hosts are just the tip of the iceberg. They range from “Jurassic” to “most excellent.” And, were the film not a direct-to-streaming release, I’d argue that some of the film’s music is worthy of some love from the Academy. The biggest highlight being the film’s meta crescendo “That’s My Song,” which will absolutely bring fans from all generations to their feet.
While not the most original or entirely coherent fish-out-of-water story, Blue’s Big City Adventure is still a lot of fun. Messy in its execution, but mushy with its message, the film is more of a delight than a disaster because it abandons its own rulebook for once. It proves that you don’t always need magic to solve a mystery and that sometimes there are better things worth chasing in life besides clues.