By: Trevor Chartrand

Children and adults alike will have a blast with PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, director Cal Brunker’s follow-up hit PAW Patrol: The Movie.  This animated adventure film is an all-around fun and exciting viewing experience for the whole family.

This time around, the PAW Patrol gang find themselves in over their heads when the (not-so) mad scientist Victoria Vance (Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson) uses an advanced magnet to pull a meteor towards the earth – a meteor made of mysterious and magical crystals.  Before Vance can collect the crystals for herself, the members of PAW Patrol discover that the crystal core can give them all…superpowers!  As the heroic team test their new abilities, Skye (Mckenna Grace), the littlest PAW, comes to terms with feeling small in a big world.  Meanwhile, Vance teams up with Mayor Humdinger (Ron Pardo) and the two conspire together to get the crystals back from the pups.

This action-packed film moves lightning-quick from beginning to end, and there’s plenty of silly fun to be had.  The story is goofy and absurd to be sure, but it’s all in service of making little ones smile.  While PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie embraces being a fairly lighthearted, surface-level romp, Skye’s journey is ultimately a missed opportunity.  Since children can likely relate to feeling defined by the limitations of their size, Brunker and his team could have explored this theme more thoroughly, allowing more of an open opportunity for parents to discuss this concept with their kids after the credits.  

On a technical level, the movie is well-made, using the same smooth and consistent quality of animation we would expect after 2021’s feature.  The actors also aren’t afraid to “go big” with their characters to guarantee young viewers can identify individual roles in the story. 

Most importantly, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie is an effective blend of action and humour that kids will love (with sprinkles of jokes ‘for the parents’ too, of course!).  It’s a relatively easy viewing experience for all ages – never becoming too loud, never reaching an ‘obnoxious’ territory, and being consistently enjoyable and entertaining.

**********

Do You Tweet? Follow These Tweeple:

Trevor Chartrand: @OhHaiTrebor