Garth Jennings wrote and directed Sing, and the premise he built is a good one. A koala named Buster Moon owns a failing theater in a city of anthropomorphic animals called Calatonia, and he stages a singing competition to keep the bank away. Then his elderly iguana assistant, Miss Crawly, adds two extra zeros to the prize. A $1,000 contest becomes a $100,000 contest, and the misprinted flyers blow out the window before anyone can proofread them.
That is the whole engine of Sing. It is a clean, funny mistake, and it puts every hungry animal in the city at Buster’s door.
Trailer, via Illumination.
The $100,000 Typo
The cast is deep and the film knows it. Matthew McConaughey voices Buster. Reese Witherspoon is Rosita, a pig with 25 piglets. Scarlett Johansson is Ash, a punk-rock porcupine. Taron Egerton is Johnny, a teenage gorilla and the son of a criminal gang leader named Big Daddy. Seth MacFarlane is Mike, a street musician mouse. Tori Kelly is Meena, a teenage elephant whose audition collapses under stage fright.
Jennings also voices Miss Crawly. John C. Reilly plays Eddie, a laid-back sheep and Buster’s best friend, and Jennifer Saunders plays Eddie’s wealthy grandmother, the former theater superstar Nana Noodleman. Jennifer Hudson voices Young Nana.
More Than 60 Songs
Sing runs 108 minutes and carries more than 60 songs, most of them performed diegetically — the animals sing them on stage, in auditions, in the story. Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande wrote an original song for it, “Faith,” which was nominated for a Golden Globe. Joby Talbot, a frequent Jennings collaborator, composed the score.
The music is the film’s strongest asset and also its crutch. A jukebox this large does the emotional work the script should be doing. When Rosita flounders in her dance routine with Gunter and decides her motherly duties have killed her passion, the film has a feeling and a song for it, but not much of a scene.
What the Numbers Say
| Sing | |
|---|---|
| Release date | December 21, 2016 |
| Runtime | 108 minutes |
| Budget | $75 million |
| Worldwide gross | $634 million |
| Metacritic | 59/100 |
A Cast That Outruns the Script
The film premiered at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 3, 2016, after a Toronto International Film Festival screening on September 11. Universal released it in the United States on December 21. It grossed $634 million worldwide against a $75 million budget, and Sing 2 followed in 2021.
That return explains the sequel. It does not explain the 59 on Metacritic.
Where the Film Actually Lands
Sing is a machine built to be liked, and mostly it works. The typo plot is tight, the voice cast is genuinely stacked, and the animal-city setting gives Jennings room to move. But more than 60 songs is a lot of borrowing. The film keeps reaching for someone else’s hit to say what it means, and the contestants’ personal lives — Rosita’s, Meena’s, Johnny’s — get less room than the soundtrack does.
The Meena thread is the one that lands. Stage fright is a real obstacle, and the film treats it as one. Mike taking a massive bank loan for a flashy car because he assumes he will win is the funniest and meanest joke in the movie.
KEY FACTS
– Runtime: 108 minutes
– Released: December 21, 2016 (US)
– Budget: $75 million
– Worldwide gross: $634 million
– Metacritic: 59/100
– Songs: more than 60
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