If there's one furry series I should be completely behind, but have always been a bit down on, it's Illumination's Sing franchise. The series is set in a completely furry world, with a complete lack of humans – something I can always get behind. And yet, I can't ever quite get behind them.

I think if I had to put my finger on what's wrong, it's that the Sing movies feel like the Illumination version of Oscar bait, being behind the scenes musicals that ostensibly celebrate the performing arts, something Academy Awards voters should, in theory, love; and yet, they can't even get the easy lay up of Best Original Song, which is straightforwardly embarrassing for movies called, well, Sing. It's not that they're failed Oscar Bait, it's that they're not going for Best Picture, or even Best Animated Feature, but simply seem to be aiming to be nominated in that category. They're not aiming for the top, and they're still missing!

Or maybe I'm just being too hard on them, and displacing my own Oscar obsessions on this otherwise innocuous series of jukebox musicals with no higher goal than to be entertaining bits of fluff. The newest entry in the franchise, if it can be called that, is just that. Sing: Thriller is a short available on Netflix, and it features a simple take on a nightmare zombie apocalypse, but furry and kid-friendly; an obvious homage to Michael Jackson's Thriller. It's definitely for kids, with a rating of TV-Y, for "fear", which I think would only apply to the absolute youngest viewers.

Sing 2 opens with the cast and crew of Moon’s Theater putting on a pop-musical stage adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Alice is played by the elephant Meena (voiced by Tori Kelly), the Mad Hatter is played by the gorilla Johnny (voiced by Taron Egerton), and the Cheshire Cat is played by a pig named Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), which seems like a bit of miscasting to me. This performance is particularly important, because in the audience is a talent scout, a saluki dog named Suki (voiced by Chelsea Peretti) who could get them an audition to perform at even bigger venues.

Anyway, she leaves about halfway through the first act.

The theater’s owner and director, the koala Mr. Moon (voiced by Matthew McConaughey), tries to stop her, asking her what she thought of the show. She replies that it’s fine, really good local children’s theater production, but just not what they’re looking for. When Moon implores her to tell him, really honestly, what she thinks, Suki sighs and asks him if he really wants to know.

Because the honest truth, she says, is they’re just not good enough.

Sing (trailer) was Illumination Entertainment's second animated film of 2016, released in time for Christmas. With The Secret Life of Pets, the two films earned the studio $1.5 billion worldwide.

The DVD and Blu-ray came out in late March of 2017. It's a straightforward comedy with light story arcs and anthropomorphic animals, in which a koala named Buster Moon organizes a singing competition to save his financially-failing theater. By mistake, the publicity leaflets say the prize money is $100,000 instead of $1,000. For the rest of the film, things gradually spiral out of control, as he selects and deals with the five acts who will eventually take the stage at the end.

I enjoyed it! Although it didn't perform as well as The Secret Life of Pets at the box office, I liked it more. Partially because of the wider range of species - plus it didn't plug the Minions franchise as much - but mostly because it felt fun, didn't get bogged down in itself, and I liked the music.

This movie had just the worst timing.

Is it fair to review a movie that came out half a year ago now, just because I was Making A Point about … something or other … when that half a year ago came and went? I don’t know, but if the review had come out then, it would have been a thumbs up. Now, this is a negative review, by the way.

Sing’s well out of the theaters and available to rent or own, and it’s nominated for an Ursa Major award. Maybe it’ll win it, for all we know. Everybody could have just gotten tired of the at this point assumed and basically all but destined winner; of course, 2016 was not a great year for presumed and basically all but destined winners. If you voted for Sing, however, I don’t blame you; it’s still okay. There is a difference between a pan and savaging, and, honestly, this barely rates pan. I used to like it, after all. Still kind of do. Just not as much anymore.

Part of the reason for this downturn in my affections is due to another movie; yes, there’s an elephant in the room we’re going to need to talk about, and I’m obviously not talking about the characters in the movie. Actually, there are a lot of elephants I’m planning on discussing, but set that aside right now because, when I rented Sing recently and rewatched it, I realized I liked Rock Dog better. So, there’s that.