Sweet claymation Jesus, Batman, The Miracle Maker is on Blu-ray. Before Robot Chicken went and made claymation a weekly occurrence, it was a rare medium for filmmaking due to the ridiculous amount of time and effort it involves. Perhaps the most prolific force in the claymation genre is Nick Park and his British icons Wallace and Gromit, and his spectacular Chicken Run. While Park may be the reigning champ, his style was distinctly cartoonish, whereas the aesthetic of The Miracle Maker’s clay figures is profoundly different with a firm basis in attempting realism. The Miracle Maker is a triumph in modern clay animation. Mixing in a little bit of basic hand-drawn animation, The Miracle Maker is a visually beautiful creation, though its ability to tell the story of Jesus is less than inspiring.
Instead of giving us an A to B take on the story, the clay and classic animation jump back and forth cramming as many inspiring Jesus moments into the 91-minute runtime as possible. It’s as if they’re trying to hit all the big points as fast as possible and they care less about helping establish that this is all of Jesus’s most celebrated moments and that we shouldn’t be expecting a cogent timeline. One second he’s sitting around a fire, the next they’re at the Sermon on the Mount. They throw out parables left and right (most animated through hand-drawn segments) with little framework for any.
Clearly the target audience is children who’ve already had a bit of Sunday School and can latch on to the keystone moments as they appear on the screen. It seems such a shame that the spectacular clay animation was used on a poorly constructed story (how it’s told, not the story itself). It may be a great tool for teaching the little ones about the bible, but they’re going to get lost fast and only catch on when the more common stories start playing.
Another weird choice here was not attempting to cover up individual actors’ accents. Even if the fragmented storytelling didn’t rip you out of the moment, suddenly hearing a disciple talk with a Scottish accent will.
The voice cast includes stellar talent Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort himself) as Jesus, Julie Christie, Richard E. Grant, Ian Holm, William Hurt, and Alfred Molina. Miranda Richardson also stars.
The film looks great in HD, but there are some definite film deterioration issues, and you’ll see the color waver at times.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Along with a DVD copy of the film, there’s an audio commentary, a “making of” documentary (definitely worth watching considering the sheer artistry of the claymation), a storyboard-to-film comparison, and two interactive games (exclusive to the DVD copy).
"The Miracle Maker" is on sale March 8, 2011 and is not rated. Animation, Children & Family, Drama. Directed by Derek W Hayes, Stanislav Sokolov. Written by Murray Watts. Starring Alfred Molina, Ian Holm, Julie Christie, Miranda Richardson, Ralph Fiennes, Richard E Grant, William Hurt.
