Hundreds Of Beavers - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

Kids Score - 8 of 10

Every so often a movie comes along that is so unique, original and sometimes wildly bizarre that they’re almost indescribable, there’s not much out there to compare them to. For instance, trying to explain to someone what A24’s Everything, Everywhere, All At One is like or even the Noah Baumback film White Noise on Netflix, they’re almost in a cinematic category unto themselves. The new film Hundreds Of Beavers surely would fall into a category all of its own, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. About the closest thing I could compare it to would be one of the Monty Python movies combined with a bit of Robot Dreams. I say Robot Dreams because the film contains virtually no spoken dialogue, its language devoid script means the film is based exclusively on visually based storytelling. Beavers is simple and clear to follow, it’s all black and white, the simplicity of the plot and style of silly humor works well for kids and adults. This is no high concept incredible piece of cinematic art, but it’s ingenuity and creativity are off the charts. And in many ways, it is smarter than one may give it credit for at first sight. While it is goofy, zany and just plain insane at times, it’s also an incredibly fun, delightful and often hilarious little movie that completely surprised me. You’ll be hard pressed to find one, let alone Hundreds Of films this year, that prove to be as fantastically entertaining as these wild and wacky Beavers.

SYNOPSIS - We open the film with some Gaelic music and see a quote from St. Augustine which reads “Lord grant me chastity . . . but not yet.” Periodically in the first half of the film it inserts these quotes for comedic effect yet I noticed no through line in the messaging. The shot of some rolling hills off into the horizon appears and some animated leaves fall as the camera slinks down and we begin to see myriads of apple trees. The opening song lyrics begin, we hear a bunch of manly voices singing about Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) and how he makes cider ale from his apples. The opening shot of Jean, again in black and white, is a live action shot of him walking, yet the background trees full of apples are animated, like Space Jam or Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where cartoons and live people interact. We watch as he collect his apples, makes cider from them and then finally produces the ale that cartoon woodsmen, traders and farmers from near and far come to enjoy. The entire introduction to this 19th century set, black and white, backwoods story is done via a musical sequence. As the song continues the cartoon men are shown raising their glasses and toasting Jean, they refer to the ale as “Applejack”, and sing the praises of the one who’s produced the delicious drink they’re enjoying. On a hill above the large orchard of apple trees are two large barrels, and after a hoorah of a song, as the visiting men leave, a beaver hops out of a wagon full of beaver skins and climbs the hill. He chews the support beams for the large barrels of booze that are approximately the size of houses. As Jean dances on top of a barrel donning a funnel style headpiece that has tubes of beer running into his mouth, the one barrel’s support beam finally collapses and begins rolling down the hill. It collides with a building that has a large apple shaped sign above it saying “Jean Kayak’s ACME Applejack”, the building explodes and all the trees in the orchard catch fire. The song ends and we’re left listening to the flames, everything except Jean himself we’ve seen so far are cartoon drawings.

If you haven’t clued into the absurdity yet, this film resides completely in the realm of zany shenanigans, which I’ve only given you a slight nibble of all the ridiculous places this film goes. The next thing we know Jean has found himself out in the cold, buried under the snow somehow, he digs himself out to find his precious orchard has burned and he’s left with nothing. As he walks towards his giant apple sign he suddenly falls down a hole in the snow with a plop, the sound effects for the film are all comical and highly animated. The scene cuts in a flash and we’re thrown into a sequence of Jean trying to start a fire, the film’s quick edits give the film a sort of frenetic energy. He manages after trying a few different ways to get a fire going, but the wind keeps blowing it out. So finally he falls on the coals to keep warm though the night, but he awakes in the morning on fire and must pull on a branch to bring a pile of snow down on himself to extinguish the flames. But it’s not too long before he gets hungry, he spots a rabbit and while looking at it, pictures a chicken drumstick in his head. Alas, his stomach growls loudly and the rabbit runs away. Now when I say “rabbit”, I don’t mean an actual rabbit, nor a cartoon rabbit, but a full sized human wearing a rabbit costume that doesn’t look like a real rabbit, but like a Disney park costume cutesy rabbit with big eyes that a little girl would run up and hug. As Jean travels around he encounters a wide variety of these costumed animals such as wolves, dogs, raccoons, skunks and of course, beavers. But soon he finds himself learning the ways of a trapper and he must uncover all the secrets of the beavers to win the hand of a young lass he sets his eyes on. This zero to hero story has surprises and wacky moments at every turn that is sure to keep young and old giggling, chuckling and thoroughly amused through to the finale.

This film is really quite a marvel in ingenuity in a few key areas. First being the creative yet also complex production design that blends the live action with cartoons repeatedly. How this film was put together, edited and how some of these images were made is pretty staggering to think about. The second would have to be the humor. This film is cartoonish, not only in how it blends animation with live action, but in its comedy and basically everything about the narrative story. Although the slapstick humor won’t be to everyone’s taste, because there’s hardly no dialogue, the visual storytelling is based exclusively on all kinds of visual gags and jokes like falling in holes and animals getting hit with clubs. An aspect of the film’s incredible creativity comes from the humor, just when one of the film’s shticks begins to wear out it’s welcome, it adapts, heads in a new direction and finds a different approach to it’s laughs. This really seems like a film that would’ve been released a hundred years ago, again referring to the creativity involved, I can’t think of anything I’ve ever seen that is quite like this film. Hundreds Of Beavers was surprisingly long for the type of movie it was, there was a couple points when I started to disengage with it ever so slightly but then as I mentioned, it would take a turn and I was back on board. And I kid you not that this film is so bizarre and comical that repeatedly upon writing this review I just began to crack up laughing recalling various parts. The sound design was simple, yet effective, in taking us through the frolicking adventure, the bonks, splats and whistles all things you’d hear in a Saturday morning cartoon. When I tell you this is one of my favorite films so far for 2024, that’s not saying much because I’ve only seen a handful of movies. But I really wouldn’t be surprised at all if this film managed to stick around on my favorites list and make my Top 10 movies of 2024. It’s that good.

SUMMARY - The frenetic fun and energy this film begins with and builds on as we’re getting into the first act only picks up momentum through the rest of the films runtime. Even with a few slight issues I had with the film’s comedic bits and pacing at moments, in the end its ingenuity and creativity won me over completely. Hundreds of Beavers just wasn't enough, I kept wanting more.