Ernest & Celestine is a cute little film about two unlikely friends. It feels exactly like the kind of animated film they would have shown us in school when I was a kid, and I would have adored it then. I love the two main characters and their rapport. It definitely feels like Ernest & Celestine bring out the best in each other. It's also neat that they value one another for what they are good at, instead of foisting selfish desires on each other. I also liked the simplicity of the animation, because it has a childlike quality to the images that lacks any pretentiousness. This feels like a throwback to hand-drawn animation from the past, and I'm still a fan of that visual style.
However, I wasn't particularly enamored with the strange world they build in Ernest & Celestine. This city that seems to only contain bears and mice, but where they are mortal enemies, didn't work all that well for me. I also found the strange mouse-tooth-fairy thing to be an odd choice. It all works to make the protagonists a pair of outcasts, but I wasn't buying into the world in the first place, which is a problem. Celestine's ambitions didn't seem strange enough to be ostracized, and I didn't feel they quite reached the kind of resolution I was hoping to see. I do appreciate the charms of Ernest & Celestine, but perhaps I'm too grown up and jaded to fully embrace it.
However, I wasn't particularly enamored with the strange world they build in Ernest & Celestine. This city that seems to only contain bears and mice, but where they are mortal enemies, didn't work all that well for me. I also found the strange mouse-tooth-fairy thing to be an odd choice. It all works to make the protagonists a pair of outcasts, but I wasn't buying into the world in the first place, which is a problem. Celestine's ambitions didn't seem strange enough to be ostracized, and I didn't feel they quite reached the kind of resolution I was hoping to see. I do appreciate the charms of Ernest & Celestine, but perhaps I'm too grown up and jaded to fully embrace it.