FernGully: The Last Rainforest

FernGully: The Last Rainforest is a 1992 animated musical fantasy film, directed by Bill Kroyer and scripted by Jim Cox. Adapted from the book of the same name by Diana Young, the film is an Australian and American venture produced by Kroyer Films, Inc., Youngheart Productions, FAI Films and 20th Century Fox. The film stars the voices of Tim Curry, Samantha Mathis, Christian Slater, Jonathan Ward, Robin Williams, and Grace Zabriskie.

Plot
Crysta is a fairy who lives in FernGully, a rainforest in Australia, and has never seen a human before. In fact, she is told they are extinct. But when a logging company comes near the rainforest, she sees that they do exist, and even accidentally shrinks one of them: a boy named Zak. Now her size, Zak sees the damage that the company does and helps Crysta to stop not only them, but an evil entity named Hexxus, who feeds off pollution.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The animation is noticeably beautiful and lovely to look at, as to be expected from animation from the 1990s. The flow of the characters and objects' movements is very natural and the characters designs themselves are also great (if pretty simple). Especially for Crysta and Hexxus.
 * 2) Top-notch voice acting. This is greatly helped by the film's cast of famous and well-known professional voice actors. Including Samantha Mathis as Crysta, Jonathan Ward as Zak, Tim Curry as Hexxus, Christian Slater as Pips, Robin Williams as Batty Koda, Grace Zabriskie as Narrator/Magi Lune, Geoffrey Blake as Ralph, Robert Pastorelli as Tony, Cheech Marin as Stump, Tommy Chong as Root, Tone Loc as Goanna, Pamela Adlon as Fairy #2, Townsend Coleman as Knotty, Brian Cummings as Ock, Kathleen Freeman as Elder #1 and Neil Ross as Elder #3. But regardless of how many of the voice actors have achieved fame, all of them do strong and wonderful performances here.
 * 3) The songs are pretty nice, despite not serving as much purpose to the movie's plot as they could (see BQ# 4). A Dream Worth Keeping is a lovely ballad that seems oddly like a Disney song, particularly their songs from their Renaissance era. Toxic Love is easily one of the darkest and most eerie songs in any kids film, being centered around Hexxus and his love for pollution. If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might As Well Be You) is a decent rap-like number sang by Lou when he was trying to eat Zak. Some Other World is pretty catchy and the lyrics are pretty pleasant.
 * 4) Most of the characters are likable and charming.
 * 5) * Crysta is a curious and plucky tomboyish fairy with a love for adventure. She starts off the film by having a naive attitude towards humans which has her seeing them as idealized allies to the rainforest (like in Magi's stories), but then she sees that the logging companies actually cut down the forest's trees. But in spite of this, she still manages to form a genuine relationship with Zak after accidently shrinking him. And after taking Magi's place as the leader of the fairies, she becomes more responsible and mature, and less naive.
 * 6) *Zak Young is a man who initially works for the logging companies at the start of the film. He also begins the movie as cowardly and terrified of everything before rushing in to stop the leveler. Not only that, but similar to Crysta, he's first introduced as kind of a callous jerk who just wants to listen to music, learns to become much more mature, brave, caring, and selfless.
 * 7) *Batty Koda, the film's deuteragonist, is a neurotic fruit bat that was used as a scientific experiment by humans. He serves as a good comic relief for the movie given how most of his dialogue is purely hilarious. His backstory is also pretty sympathetic in spite of him generally being a comedy character.
 * 8) *Hexxus, the main antagonist in the first film, is the spirit of pollution and destruction. Along with his nightmarish villain song, he's also an incredibly dark and shady villain given his design and intentions. But that doesn't stop him from being very flamboyant, as showcased by the fact that he's extremely prone to singing (in a film where he's one of only three singing characters).
 * 9) Speaking of the characters, their designs are very nice and pleasant to look at. While they are pretty simple, they're one of those cases where simplicity becomes it's own form of art and creativity. The fact that the animation is so beautiful also complements the great character designs a lot.
 * 10) Emotional and tearjerking moments like Magi Lune's last words before she dies by fading away and Crysta restoring Zak to his normal size with the knowledge that it's very likely that they'll never see each other again.
 * 11) The environmental message, in spite of being a major theme in the movie, isn't really "forced down the audience's throat". As it feels a lot more natural in execution that most media centered around aesops in spite of almost every event in the movie being centered around protecting the environment. But because of that factor, it isn't slapped on at the last minute with no build-up or reason to it other than "giving a good lesson to the kids". It's also a very important message to teach not just kids, but people of all ages.
 * 12) The ending is simply wonderful. As stated in Wikipedia's synopsis of the film, "With Crysta appearing after the fight, having survived and succeeding Magi as a magical fairy. She gives Zak a seed, begging him to remember everything that has transpired and she forlornly restores him to his human size. Remembering the seed in his hand, Zak promises to remember his adventure, and buries the seed in the soil before telling Tony and Ralph that things need to change as they leave the forest behind. The seed sprouts new growth for FernGully as Crysta playfully chases Pips with Batty following".

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The way the movie tries to reinforce it's environmental message can feel corny at times.
 * 2) The film uses the "liar revealed" trope when Crysta discovers that he lied about the red marks being magical wards to keep the Leveler away, and humans are the ones destroying the forest. The rest of the fairies reject him and leave him alone after that. Although it doesn't last long.
 * 3) The battle in the climax, while decent, had a few inconsistencies with some previously established plot points and deus ex machinas.
 * 4) The songs, while most of them are nonetheless good, still don't serve as much purpose to the plot as they could.
 * 5) Plot Hole: If Crysta has shrinking abilities, then why didn't she use them on the other people trying to cut down the rainforest's trees? If she did, than the movie wouldn't have a plot, but still.

Reception
FernGully: The Last Rainforest received mixed to positive reviews from critics upon it's release. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 63% based on reviews from 16 critics. On Metacritic the film has a score of 67% based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A" on scale of A to F.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three out of four stars, saying the film was visually "very pleasing," told a "useful lesson", "and although the movie is not a masterpiece it's pleasant to watch for its humor and sweetness." Hollis Chacona from The Austin Chronicle added that the film was "funny, pretty, touching, scary, magical stuff." Janet Maslin of The New York Times had an unfavorable impression of the film, describing it as "[a]n uncertain blend of sanctimonious principles and Saturday-morning cartoon aesthetics". According to Wayne Young, Jeffrey Katzenberg called the producers of FernGully to tell them that he loved the film.

Trivia

 * In Spain, it was dubbed into Spanish entirely by comedian Ángel Garó, a single-handed feat that earned him entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
 * Robin Williams, who played Batty in this film, also starred in another animated feature film in the same year, Aladdin (1992), in which he provided the voice of the Genie.
 * Keeping with the environmental theme, the film's poster was printed on recycled paper, and merchandise used environmentally-conscious packaging.

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