As an adult who would rather run screaming naked into a burning building than have to sit through your garden-variety rambunctious and way over-caffeininated Pixar-type kids film, I was pleasantly surprised recently when I saw the movie SING (Illumination Entertainment and released by Universal Studios) at the cinema with my six year old daughter and wife courtesy of some free movie tickets (the REAL Gold Class being Free Class).

Packed with more than 60 classic songs most people would know spanning the 80’s to present day (including a new song called ‘Faith’ by Ariana Grande, who I am familiar with again thanks to my daughter’s prodigious UTube-ing skills), this movie, incredibly, is really a one man show, (as much as that is ever possible with films) having been both written and directed by Garth Jennings. Not a name I was familiar with but his two previous directing credits have been Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (2005) and Son of Rambow (2007) so he definitely (and obviously) already has some runs on the board before landing at the helm of this work.

SING tells the the story of a koala (Australian flavor right there!) – named Buster Moon -voiced by Matthew McConaughey –  who owns a music theatre that has seen better days. In debt to the bank up to his herbivorous marsupial eyeballs, Mr Moon, as he is known to his fellow animal characters, comes up with a plan to breath new live into the theatre by staging a singing contest. First prize is $1000 – or is it?  The premise of this movie is a misunderstanding that spirals out of control, leading the would-be singing contestants to believe they are infact competing for $100 000.

In the parlance of my six year old, the cool factor on this movie ‘is like, a thousand’. This movie has the energy of a blast furnace but manages to avoid the overly annoying and tiresomely cute frenetic energy of so many of it’s contemporaries in the kids film market. The animal carwash scene in particular, along with scores of others, had the adults in the audience holding-on-to-their-cushioned-and-cupholdered-chairs-for-support laughing. That you don’t see every day.

A visit to the Golden Arches afterwards completed the experience when we were able to take home our very own talking Buster Moon figurine inside a Happy Meal, effectively ‘upsizing’ our cinematic experience, as you do.  Native Australian animals on the menu at Macca’s? Now there’s a contender for 2017’s first misconstrued false news story.

P.s (Is that what you write on a blog for an afterthought?)   How very last year of me to include a picture featuring a man who is no longer Australian Prime Minister and another who has got only 20 days left in office. Lets call it a nostalgic throwback to what will inevitably very soon be viewed retrospectively  by some as ‘simpler days’.