UNICORN WARS |
★★★★★
4 February 2023
A movie review of UNICORN WARS.
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Director: Alberto Vázquez.
Starring: Jon Gori, Ramón Barea, Maribel Legarreta, Itxaso Quintana, Manu Heras, Jaione Insausti, Kepa Cueto.
“Actions have consequences,” Bluey
UNICORN WARS is a Spanish animated movie about teddy bears fighting unicorns. It starts as uproarious as TEAM AMERICA [2004] but gradually gets so bleak, and becomes a fable for the ages. Be warned, there is full-frontal teddy bear nudity (once seen, it cannot be unseen!).
Before watching, I wondered whose side I would be on: team teddy bear or team unicorn. I assumed the former. Teddy bears are cute and I expected a funny, minor subversion of preconceptions. UNICORN WARS goes much, much further. You will never look at that toy in the same way again. Having seen a clip weeks before settling down in the cinema, I assumed a relaxed posture in the seat. My emotional guard was not up, even after a nightmarish opening. The commencement, harking back to Disney’s BAMBI (1942), involves Maria the unicorn searching for her mother. Though it is quickly forgotten when we are introduced to the teddy bear army training camp.
Starring: Jon Gori, Ramón Barea, Maribel Legarreta, Itxaso Quintana, Manu Heras, Jaione Insausti, Kepa Cueto.
“Actions have consequences,” Bluey
UNICORN WARS is a Spanish animated movie about teddy bears fighting unicorns. It starts as uproarious as TEAM AMERICA [2004] but gradually gets so bleak, and becomes a fable for the ages. Be warned, there is full-frontal teddy bear nudity (once seen, it cannot be unseen!).
Before watching, I wondered whose side I would be on: team teddy bear or team unicorn. I assumed the former. Teddy bears are cute and I expected a funny, minor subversion of preconceptions. UNICORN WARS goes much, much further. You will never look at that toy in the same way again. Having seen a clip weeks before settling down in the cinema, I assumed a relaxed posture in the seat. My emotional guard was not up, even after a nightmarish opening. The commencement, harking back to Disney’s BAMBI (1942), involves Maria the unicorn searching for her mother. Though it is quickly forgotten when we are introduced to the teddy bear army training camp.
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Of course, the mind immediately compares the scenes to Stanley Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET (1987). You inevitably contrast films in the war movie genre, but UNICORN WARS does not resort to lazy pastiche and spoofing (until a STAR WARS [1977] nod). It offers its own version of war is hell. Though before that plenty of laughs are thrown in. Almost straightway the audience gets an eyeful of teddy bear male genitals. The trainees are winding down in the dormitory. There are no servicewomen mixing it up à la Paul Verhoeven’s STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997). Is it an oversight or a commentary on male aggression?
UNICORN WARS repeatedly pulls the rug from under the audience. So many stories can learn from such narrative and character dexterity. Recruit Bluey starts off as a movie punchline: preening, thin-skinned. However, Bluey’s insecurity runs disturbingly deep. You may think it is a character arc, until a flashback reveals he has been rotten to the core since childhood.
Corporal Pompom, Tubby, the Cuddly-Wuddly twins. LOL! What names! Sergeant Ironstroke instructs the cohort of soldier trainees we follow. This instructor wants unicorns to suffer. The encouragement of sadism should set off viewer alarm bells. The audience are meant to ask themselves: are these youngsters being fed heinous propaganda? Among the dark commentary is the veneer of humour thanks to the juxtaposition of teddy bears. Of course when we leave the cinema we are meant to replace cuteness with non-cuteness, and see if we still find it funny. On a re-watch I have a feeling the jokes will have drained away. On a first watch, however, there are laugh-out-loud moments.
An in-house priest resides at the barracks. UNICORN WARS is scathing about organised religion’s relationship to authoritarianism. Misinformation, bolstering regimes, reinforcing injustice.
Before the recruits have qualified as fully fledged soldiers they are sent on a mission with Sergeant Ironstroke and the priest. A scene where the army chiefs call the group expendable adds to the dark satire that slowly builds.
UNICORN WARS is an original mix of adorableness and aggression, the comic and melancholy.
