Review: Swapped shape-shifts into a familiar, fun adventure

Since its founding in March 2017, Skydance Animation has had a pretty rough go of it. Their first movie, Luck, was an absolute whiff of a movie, a pathetic attempt to co-opt the tried-and-true Pixar formula (if you can even call it a formula...maybe that's the rub). Next up was Spellbound, an attempt at making a Disney-esque princess musical that also fell flat, but was at least better than Luck. Now, the studio is back with shape-shifting animal adventure Swapped (formerly known as Pookoo), which continues the upward trajectory. It isn't anything groundbreaking. It's barely even good. But it's a sign that Skydance Animation might yet find their footing, and their first movie that's pretty easy to recommend.

Nathan Greno, who previously directed Tangled (alongside Byron Howard) and worked on lots of great Disney movies like Mulan, Bolt, and Big Hero 6, is at the reins of Swapped, which features a gorgeous, fully-realized animalian world full of stunning creatures. Swapped is a looker if nothing else, and its beautiful animation shows that the talent at the studio runs deep. There are tons of talented artists there, but the issue seems that they never quite find a story that's worth their merit. Or rather, the stories are never allowed to develop to the level that they could. 

On that front, at least, Swapped is certainly better than Skydance's previous output. There's nothing groundbreaking here. On narrative and thematic levels, this is a movie we've seen dozens of times before, and in much more interesting and creative variations. But Swapped excels in being visually engaging, particularly with its magnificent creature designs. A lot of the creatures here look like they could be Pokémon (which is a huge compliment). Hell, there are even deer that look like they're made of trees, super similar to Sawsbuck. 

The sense of discovery is, for me, what really drove me through this movie, and kept me leaning in, excited to see who or what we might see next. There are bear creatures who roll up to look like moss-covered boulders, a plethora of undersea creatures who camouflage themselves to look like leaves and lily pads, wolves with majestic manes of leaves. I loved spending time in this world and seeing the various ecosystems within it.

And the narrative engine that gets us through it is solid enough, if unremarkable. Our hero is a pookoo (a tiny rodent creature) named Ollie. Ollie is a curious and inventive creature, quick to iterate on ideas and open to befriending creatures outside his species. This violates the cardinal rule of the pookoo, which is to hide today so you can live tomorrow. Young Ollie, however, decides to show kindness to a little javin (a leafy-plumaged bird). It's obviously a generous act, but one that quickly backfires, as the bird calls out to her family. Soon, the javin are swarming and eating up all the food that the pookoo rely on. This leads to the pookoo having to live off the javin scraps, barely managing to survive at all.

I really like this setup, because it actually is Ollie's fault that his species is in such dire straits. A lot of the time in movies, the hero feels responsible for how bad things are even if they aren't. But in this case, no, yeah, it is 100% his fault. He disobeyed the rules, and everyone suffered for it. It is a little ironic because, as you might imagine, the film comes around to a theme of accepting others and being stronger together, but if Ollie had just toed the line and not shared with the bird, a lot of hardship could've been avoided.

Anyways, the story really gets going when Ollie encounters a magical pod that causes him to shapeshift into a javin. Then, another javin, Ivy, takes him under her wing, only to encounter another magical pod herself. She, naturally, becomes a pookoo. So these natural enemies take on new forms that still position them as natural enemies, only they need to team up and teach each other how to take care of their new abilities so they can find yet more magical pods and hopefully get back to their normal shapes. Along the way, they're chased by a pack of very hungry wolves, and get help from a goofy and lovable fish. It's all good fun, and the story is quite propulsive. The runtime was listed at 100 minutes, but more than 10 of those minutes are end credits, so this thing flies by.

One of the big selling points Netflix has been pushing for this movie is the voice cast. This is Michael B. Jordan's first movie post-Oscar win, and while he delivers a good performance, it's a bit of weird casting. Ollie is this tiny, adorable creature, and then he has this extremely sexy voice coming out of him. It's not a total mismatch, like it didn't take me out of the movie, but it is odd. Imogen Poots, on the other hand, feels like the exact right choice for Ivy. And Tracy Jordan obviously gets a lot of laughs as the fish.

I love how Ivy holds her arms like they're wings when she's in pookoo form.

The larger scope of the story is where things get a little more interesting. There's a sort of folk legend about how the magical pods once allowed creatures from various species to communicate, which allowed community to form and peace to emerge. But of course, the powers that be hate to see a union coming: in this case, a mighty fire wolf who caused havoc, destruction, and division in the once-lush valley. This ends up coming back around in pretty interesting ways, and certainly gives the film some strong narrative beats than the more familiar odd-couple stuff.

Swapped isn't a movie that makes a big impression, but it at least signals that Skydance Animation is moving int he right direction, and might yet make a great movie (maybe it'll be Ray Gunn, slated for release later this year). And for what it is, Swapped is a sweet adventure that's light on its feet and is a delight to look at.