best movie i've ever seen.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The beloved Peanuts characters created by Charles M. Schulz make a very endearing feature film debut here. The story has Charlie Brown feeling more despondent than ever due to the fact that his destiny seems to be failing at everything. This isn't helped by the fact that Lucy has actually created a slide show detailing every one of his supposed faults! However, hope is generated when Charlie Brown decides to try out competitive spelling, and has success right off the bat. (In an appropriate touch, this is because some of the first words that he gets are tailored to his personality, like "insecure".) He even goes to compete in the National Spelling Bee.There's some material here that could be seen as padding, but overall it's an effective means of stretching out a Peanuts story to a feature length of approximately an hour and a half. The animation is slick and there is a wealth of interesting visuals. Rod McKuens' handful of songs are admittedly pretty silly, but they're not long enough or frequent enough to become a true detriment.The verbal jokes and visual gags are just as funny as they've ever been, and the characters are all well defined in their classic way. Snoopy, as usual, is the biggest cut-up. One example of this: Linus handed over his precious security blanket to Charlie Brown to serve as a good luck charm, and suffers enough withdrawals to seek out Charlie Brown and demand the blanket back. Then, every time Linus keels over, Snoopy fills a glass of water, and you think it's for Linus, but he ends up drinking it himself.As a bonus, "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" features a catchy way of listing various spelling rules; watching this wouldn't be a bad way for kids to learn some of them! Poor Charlie Brown ends up so stressed out and weary that he automatically spells words that he speaks or are spoken to him.You do feel bad for Charlie, but in the end, you can always leave it to Linus to put everything into perspective for him and the audience.Many genuine laughs, a solid story, some real heart, and a typically excellent jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi (including some variations on the standard "Linus and Lucy") help to make this a winner.Eight out of 10.

The first Peanuts feature film is funny, smart, and charming like the classic TV specials that preceded it. All the great characters we love so much are here doing the things we love to watch them do. There's Lucy pulling away the football from Charlie Brown, Snoopy ice skating, a hilarious baseball game with a pitcher's mound covered in dandelions, Lucy and her psychiatrist booth, Linus and his blanket, and so much more. It's chock full of wonderful moments fans of Peanuts can't get enough of. The main plot centers around Charlie Brown entering a spelling bee and finding he's actually good at something for once. But as he progresses to the national championships, his old insecurities creep in and threaten to ruin his chance at glory.The voice work is terrific, as it always was in the early Peanuts cartoons. Peter Robbins voices Charlie Brown for the last time here. There would be other decent Charlie Browns over the years but none was ever better than Robbins. The music is lovely and upbeat. The songs are sweet and cute. The animation is colorful and brilliant in its simplicity. The scene where Schroeder plays Beethoven while we're treated to a vista of beautiful artwork is amazing. The script is clever and fun and full of memorable lines. Charles Schulz was a genius as far as I'm concerned. His writing appealed to both kids and adults unlike anything else at the time (or since, really). This is such a joy to watch. I can't imagine anyone disliking this film but apparently, judging by some reviews here, such people do exist. Takes all kinds I guess.

I'm an adult seeing this for the first time, and I have an adult viewpoint. Simply not good. Animation is primitive, music is bad and tedious, not funny at all, and the weak climax does not make up for two hours of painful situations. Charlie, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, and Schroeder are decently colorful characters. The rest don't even make it to cartoon quality. I did grow up reading Charlie Brown comic strips in paperback form, and I liked it. But it loses its charm in this format.2 hours is way too long, forcing time killing extended sequences. Overuse of the "Linus and Lucy" theme gets tedious and shows a lack of diligence. Overuse of the minor key "Linus and Lucy" theme got annoying. It's not funny at all. There is one funny opening joke, and then Snoopy gets just a few funny bits, and that's it. You're in severe pain for 90+% of the movie. That's not entertainment.Way too mean with name calling and ridicule. Personally I find name calling and ridicule very offensive in any situation, even more so when it's this extensive. I just don't see the payoff in this movie. CB is a loser, a dumb, dull, unliked, untalented kid that ends up losing and "the world doesn't end." I don't see how that's a worthwhile lesson to anyone. The lesson is: no matter how much people call you names, ridicule you, no matter how much you lose in life or no matter that you can't seem to do anything right, somehow it's OK. There may be a nugget of truth in there, but basically having the movie makers essentially preach to me for two hours that I share those qualities - that's a little condescending, isn't it? But anyway, even if the message were worthwhile, the ending message is so weak and watered down that it doesn't give me a good feeling and erase all the misery I've experienced in the last two hours.It always felt like they were killing time with extended animation exercises. Extended segments: spelling rules, Linus looks for blanket, Snoopy ice-skating, and the Beethoven segment. Except for the spelling rules segment, the other extended segments did not move the story along, with Snoopy and Beethoven completely superfluous. These segments also came across like animation experiments, "Let's see how realistically we can make Snoopy appear to glide over the ice." "Let's make an extended high art collage set to Beethoven's music." That said: The Beethoven segment was very good and was the highlight of the movie. In fact, it's the only portion I saved for repeated viewing. As a short animation segment it's great, but as far as moving the story of a 2 hour movie along, especially for kids, no.I can't see anyone learning spelling rules from this movie - so educational value is not much. Show this movie to any kid and then see if he can recite even the I before E rule, I don't think so. Music was no good - the spelling bee song was not good.I know it's apples to oranges, but this 1969 movie compared to the work and storytelling that Disney was doing as far back as 1937 (Snow White)? Like Rembrandt vs. kids with crayons.Climax did not even come close to paying off, or making up for all the setup. The climax is two lines: "The World didn't end," and "Welcome home Charlie Brown." That simply doesn't cut it.

I would say that in parts of this movie, this is possibly the ultimate showcasing of Charlie Brown's loser persona in animation. The first part of the movie, as well as the last part, were the best. It was fabulous up until the introduction of the spelling bee storyline. It then flagged, being moderately enjoyable, but rather bland, slow-moving, and not quite in its element. The songs, I have to admit, are really, really boring. There were a few good parts, like Schroeder's Beethoven Fantasia and Snoopy's skating sequence, but overall the main story section was mediocre. However, the quality leaped hugely the moment Charlie Brown lost the spelling bee. The silent, unaddressed, but cruelly obvious dejection and failure in Charlie Brown's trip back home, and the getting ready for bed was painful in its realism and depressiveness. Even though the Peanuts specials were so much more kid-friendly than the comic strip, they still never broke the golden rule that things don't ever, ever turn out right, unless there's a very, very good reason (i.e. "A Charlie Brown Christmas"), and they stayed faithful to that concept in the movie.I think that the very beginning and very ending of the movie were the best. I loved the beginning sequence. To the viciously saccharine lyrics of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown", Charlie Brown happily makes a kite, pats it fondly and goes outside. It is immediately pulverized by the wind. Silent and dogged, he goes back inside and makes another kite, the reused animation here doing much, much more here than being a shortcut. He then goes out, is taunted by the Kite-Eating tree, and in a fit of bravado, tries to fly the kite. It fails so pathetically that you laugh despite your sympathy. It then goes on to Charlie Brown's woes, Lucy's cruelty, etc., which flows beautifully until the spelling bee.The very end, after Charlie Brown's aforementioned silent misery, Linus, the only one who cares about Charlie Brown, of course comes by. Charlie Brown is apathetic, limp, and uncaring. No anger or self-pity here, he has simply been quietly crushed under this final defeat. And here, Linus utters one of the most simple yet deep pieces of philosophy he has ever uttered, in true Schulz language: "Well, I can understand how you feel. You worked hard, studying for the spelling bee, and I suppose you feel you let everyone down, and you made a fool of yourself and everything." He goes to the door and pauses."But did you notice something, Charlie Brown?" Charlie Brown: "What's that?" "The world didn't come to an end." And with that, he leaves, dragging his blanket behind him.And slowly, rather painfully, but without a word, Charlie Brown sits up, dresses, and goes outside, where "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" strikes up again to mirror the beginning. Charlie Brown has gone nowhere, he has failed, he's stuck in the same position as he was before. But as Linus said, the world didn't come to an end. Just like in "A Charlie Brown Christmas", Linus comes unobtrusively to the rescue, without any proper acknowledgment of his role. Linus is the kind of person everyone in the whole world probably wishes they knew. The song is right, "We're all a boy named Charlie." We all fail, get let down for no good reason, wallow in self-pity, and never understand. There are many Charlie Browns in this world, and very few Linuses. No one relates to him, but everyone recognizes and thanks him with awed respect. And in spite of all this meaningless and unwarranted failure, Charlie Brown goes on like a real person. In most fiction, good people win, hard work is paid off, and somehow, sometime, everyone gets what they deserve and all loose ends are tied up. Not so in Peanuts. Charles Schulz's world is cruel and illogical. There is no real ending, only dull reality and a resigned step back into square one. But Charlie Brown, unlike most real people, has Linus.And that, despite the movie's awful blah-ness throughout the middle, makes this movie get a great 9/10.