Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts, once spent a good deal of time in France during World War II when he was in the U. S. Army. For some reason, he decided that recreating a few of the small towns and a chateau in which he stayed would make for a good Peanuts film. The results are decidedly mixed.
Plot In a Nutshell: Charlie Brown and some of the gang visit France as exchange students, with Charlie and Linus being invited to stay at a mysterious, secluded old mansion. Who invited him, and why? Snoopy and Woodstock come along and provide most of the comedy relief.
Why I Rated It a '6': One of the main reasons people found Charlie Brown & company so enjoyable over the years was the setting Schulz used. Most Peanuts fans celebrated Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving, so making TV specials for those holidays, especially if they were good, is going to have a lot of appeal. Other topics, like the kids playing various sports, or Charlie having a crush on a little red haired girl, are again things to which most people can relate. But what is the appeal of some nondescript tiny French village no one's ever heard of? It seems the village and the chateau in the film were faithfully recreated from when Schulz was there in the 1940s, but who cares? They don't mean anything to anybody. Only to Schulz. No one's even heard of them, unlike if he chose to set part of the story near a famous landmark like the Eiffel Tower. But he didn't. So this comes across as something of a vanity project, which doesn't lend much to its appeal.
Even worse, this has to be the sloppiest Peanuts film I've seen so far. I wonder if the producers were under some sort of deadline to get this out on time. There are several pretty egregious mistakes here. Many of them are documented in the Goofs section, but here are a few examples. When Linus announces that Charlie and he will be going to France, many of their classmates congratulate him. Peppermint Patty is clearly spotted amongst the crowd. Charlie then goes home and gets a phone call from PP. She tells him she is going to France, and when he tells her that he's going as well, this is news to her. So who was the girl who looked exactly like PP in the classroom?
On the dinner menu Snoopy reads on the airplane, one of the entries is for "lamp" instead of lamb. At one point Linus is suddenly wearing a wrist watch, which he uses to declare they'll be late for school. He then puts his arm down, and when he raises it again, the watch is gone! Another scene shows the group heading through a metal detector at the airport, and Lucy (who is not going on the trip) is among them, and Marcie is missing. In the next shot, after Snoopy goes through, Marcie now appears and Lucy is gone. Sloppy, man.
The film is not all bad. I am a fan of Peanuts and there is enough of the Peanuts charm here to make it at least palatable. The interactions between Snoopy and Woodstock go a long way here. Outside of those two, though, much of the rest of the story is almost straight-up drama. Charlie really doesn't do anything in this one that usually got him in trouble, like buying the wrong tree or misspelling 'beagle.' He just goes on the trip and wonders who sent him the letter. That's it. It's a bit of a departure from what made Charlie who he was. So it's not all that surprising that Schulz didn't make another feature-length film after this. It doesn't really hold up to the Peanuts' relatively high standard.
6/10. Would I watch again (Y/N)?: Maybe someday but not anytime soon.
Plot In a Nutshell: Charlie Brown and some of the gang visit France as exchange students, with Charlie and Linus being invited to stay at a mysterious, secluded old mansion. Who invited him, and why? Snoopy and Woodstock come along and provide most of the comedy relief.
Why I Rated It a '6': One of the main reasons people found Charlie Brown & company so enjoyable over the years was the setting Schulz used. Most Peanuts fans celebrated Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving, so making TV specials for those holidays, especially if they were good, is going to have a lot of appeal. Other topics, like the kids playing various sports, or Charlie having a crush on a little red haired girl, are again things to which most people can relate. But what is the appeal of some nondescript tiny French village no one's ever heard of? It seems the village and the chateau in the film were faithfully recreated from when Schulz was there in the 1940s, but who cares? They don't mean anything to anybody. Only to Schulz. No one's even heard of them, unlike if he chose to set part of the story near a famous landmark like the Eiffel Tower. But he didn't. So this comes across as something of a vanity project, which doesn't lend much to its appeal.
Even worse, this has to be the sloppiest Peanuts film I've seen so far. I wonder if the producers were under some sort of deadline to get this out on time. There are several pretty egregious mistakes here. Many of them are documented in the Goofs section, but here are a few examples. When Linus announces that Charlie and he will be going to France, many of their classmates congratulate him. Peppermint Patty is clearly spotted amongst the crowd. Charlie then goes home and gets a phone call from PP. She tells him she is going to France, and when he tells her that he's going as well, this is news to her. So who was the girl who looked exactly like PP in the classroom?
On the dinner menu Snoopy reads on the airplane, one of the entries is for "lamp" instead of lamb. At one point Linus is suddenly wearing a wrist watch, which he uses to declare they'll be late for school. He then puts his arm down, and when he raises it again, the watch is gone! Another scene shows the group heading through a metal detector at the airport, and Lucy (who is not going on the trip) is among them, and Marcie is missing. In the next shot, after Snoopy goes through, Marcie now appears and Lucy is gone. Sloppy, man.
The film is not all bad. I am a fan of Peanuts and there is enough of the Peanuts charm here to make it at least palatable. The interactions between Snoopy and Woodstock go a long way here. Outside of those two, though, much of the rest of the story is almost straight-up drama. Charlie really doesn't do anything in this one that usually got him in trouble, like buying the wrong tree or misspelling 'beagle.' He just goes on the trip and wonders who sent him the letter. That's it. It's a bit of a departure from what made Charlie who he was. So it's not all that surprising that Schulz didn't make another feature-length film after this. It doesn't really hold up to the Peanuts' relatively high standard.
6/10. Would I watch again (Y/N)?: Maybe someday but not anytime soon.