Offerman leads a talented cast, but this preschool picture book spinoff fails to inspireGrumpy Mr Fish (Nick Offerman) has a reputation for being a sourpuss, but when he teams up with baby sea dragon Pip (Nina Oyama) to locate a wish-granting fish, it’s pretty much guaranteed that we will discover some sort of heart of gold lurking beneath his gloomy exterior. Not that a picture book for the two to four-year-old crowd can’t be expanded into a satisfying narrative feature film universe, but this high seas adventure as personal growth is fairly by-the-numbers stuff. Based on the books by Deborah Diesen and Dan Hanna, The Pout-Pout Fish’s animation lacks the charm of the books’ illustrations, and the writing is uninspired. Sample exposition-dump: “Did you not hear what they just said? Someone else is looking for Shimmer! And they’ve got a head start! If they get to her first, she won’t have any wish power left!” When the script tries to be more distinctive, you kind of wish they hadn’t bothered – a trio of pink dolphins reference lip-fillers and parody Mean Girls in a way that will be utterly meaningless to the tots at whom the film is aimed, while not being clever enough for their parents. Even the fact that the dolphins are voiced by Amy Sedaris doesn’t help much.So is there anything to like ? The lead character’s vocal stylings are a high point, because Offerman does have one of the great voices. (His entertaining autobiography Paddle Your Own Canoe is well worth the audiobook version.) The man’s voice – an exquisite walnut burr, burnished to a deep amber lustre – can almost, though not quite, elevate bland fare like this uninspiring effort. It’s pretty much the only reason to watch, or at the very least, listen. Continue reading...