‘Arlo’ gets by with a little help from odd group of friends
Director Ryan Crego says that when he first drew the central character of his new animated movie musical for Netflix, some things were very different.
The half-boy, half-alligator’s first name was Alistair (“impossible to spell,” he says), he wore a top hat (“why?”) and he had “thick little tree trunk legs,” which he allows were “kinda cute.”
What hasn’t changed with the lad as “Arlo the Aligator Boy” is set to debut on the streaming platform this week, Crego says, is the youngster’s happy, optimistic nature.
“I set out to create the most joyful, positive character that I could dream up,” Crego says in the film’s production notes.
Mission accomplished.
In fact, so infectious is the personality of Arlo — and so quirky is the movie in general — that it’s easy to forgive its generally lackluster storytelling.
And as this is primarily a movie for children, you have to appreciate the lessons it has to impart. Chief among them is that we should celebrate everyone’s differences and be kind to one another.
We truly can’t have enough of those kinds of messages right now.
Arlo’s adventure — which sets up Netflix’s TV series “I Heart Arlo” — begins with him as a baby in New York City, a setting established with a jazzy opening number.
We do not find Arlo in the most glamorous of Big Apple locations, however. Long story short, he is residing in a basket that floats all the way from the city’s sewer to the country’s swampland. There, he’s taken in by the loving, fiery Edmee (voiced with gusto by Annie Potts), who raises him by herself.
Years after his arrival, Arlo (Michael J. Woodard) has made a habit of sneaking off to watch the folks having a good ol’ time on passing riverboats. One day, folks aboard a boat spot Arlo, and their reaction to him helps him to understand he’s not exactly like them.
With Edmee’s blessing, Arlo decides to leave home for a father he didn’t know he had in the Big Apple. He’s armed with little more than his upbeat outlook, a catchphrase he picked up from his adoptive mother — “rickety biscuit!” — and the last name Beauregard, only just revealed to him.
He first washes up in a small coastal town, where, after a misadventure related to his first attempt at driving, he becomes the interest of a pair of lowlifes running a struggling alligator-experience business. Stucky (Jennifer Coolidge) and Ruff (Michael “Flea” Balzary of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) track him up the coast as he makes some unusual friends.
They include Furlecia (Jonathan Van Ness), a walking collection of hair; Teeny Tiny Tony (Tony Hale of “Arrested Development”), a 2 ½-foot-tall, streetwise mouseman with roots in New York; and Bertie (Mary Lambert), a human girl who’s thickly built and, at 13 feet tall, at the opposite end of the height spectrum from Tony.
Arlo gravitates toward Bertie, proclaiming her to be his best friend. Because of her physical nature, however, she has made a habit of constantly moving and isn’t keen on sticking around after she helps Arlo find his father.
To that end, Arlo soon realizes Dad is a New York bigshot, but will Ansel Beauregard (Vincent Rodriguez III) be as excited to meet Arlo as Arlo is to meet him?
While “Arlo” struggles at times to hold an adult’s interest, it is aided by surprisingly strong musical numbers. There really isn’t a bad one in the toe-tapping bunch, with a lovely duet by Lambert and Woodard, “Follow Me Home,” having been released for the world to enjoy.
That pair of voice actors help sell their characters’ bond, and you especially root for Bertie thanks to the relatable vulnerability Lambert infuses into her.
The guess here is many younger viewers will not struggle to stay invested in this colorful movie and, you would expect, the show to come.
What Crego (“Sanjay and Craig”) has delivered with his feature-directing debut is far from an animated classic, but “Arlo the Aligator Boy” has the potential to lift you out of your personal swamp for a bit.