Review: SeeFood / Cert: 15 / Director: Aun Hoe Goh / Screenplay: Jeffrey Chiang / Starring: Maxwell Vreeland Andrew, Steven Bone, Colin Chong / Release Date: VOD OUT NOW
SeeFood (also known as Sea Level) is a children’s animation largely set underwater with fish, sharks and a coral reef. Finding Nemo, A Turtle’s Tale and Shark Tale have all swam in this sea before, but do not give up on SeeFood immediately, it will eventually prove its worth.
Our hero here is Pup, a young bamboo shark (looking much like any catfish) who has a close relationship with the much larger Julius (a hungry, sharp-toothed white-tip shark). After seeing some human children stealing egg sacks from the reef, Pup is determined to save them. Being a bamboo shark, he can survive on land for a short while and sets out to the nearest island.
Unfortunately it takes a long time to get to this point. The narrative is unfocused and wanders far too much, particularly in the first half of the film.
Once it gets going, however, SeeFood is very enjoyable and imaginative; how often are we shown a shark in a large mecha suit fighting chickens, for example? There is a lot of fun in the action scenes, and some enjoyably silly moments.
The animation is too cute for adult tastes, but then this is clearly a film for young children. As with the story, it works best during the action scenes but seems a bit bland during slower moments. (Having said that, there are a couple of beautiful backdrops for some scenes too.)
SeeFood is not perfect, but it has some very fun ideas and will certainly merit repeated viewings by its young target audience.
Extras: TBC
