The Hero of Color City (also known as The Hero of Colour City in the UK) is a 2014 animated musicaladventurecomedy film directed by Frank Gladstone. The film stars the voices of Christina Ricci, Sean Astin, Owen Wilson, E.G. Daily, Jessica Capshaw, Rosie Perez, Craig Ferguson, Wayne Brady, Jess Harnell, and David Kaye. Original songs and the score were written by Zoë Poledouris and Angel Roché Jr. The film follows Yellow, a yellow crayon and her gang of other crayons who find themselves living in a crayon box to save the crayons from two unfinished drawings from their owner who have blocked up their color source.
The Hero of Color City was released in a limited theatrical engagement on October 3, 2014, followed by releases on streaming and video platforms.
The film received generally negative reviews from critics, notably for its lack of character & story depth, inconsistent pacing, use of humor, and musical numbers.
Plot
Six-year old Ben is drawing a king named King Scrawl and an insect-like creature named Gnat. As he is drawing, his mom tells him to go to sleep, leaving the drawings unfinished. As he falls asleep, his crayons come to life and use their crayon box to enter a magical land known as Color City. One of the crayons, Yellow, is accidentally left behind and enters late. As she enters, she accidentally attracts King Scrawl and Gnat, who wish to be colored.
In Color City, she meets up with her friends, Red, Green, Blue, Black, and White as they go to Madame Pink's Spa to repair after use. Yellow talks to Madame Pink about not being special, even when Pink insists she is. After finishing her tip treatment, Yellow rides her bike across Color City to the Lighthouse for a beach party prepared by her friends.
However, she is kidnapped by King Scrawl and Gnat and taken to the top of a skyscraper. When Sheriff Tan frees her with his paper airplane, however, Scrawl and Gnat head to the top of the Rainbow Colorfall, the source of the crayons' color. At the Colorfall, King Scrawl and Gnatt submerge themselves in the flow before the wax drains out. They then choose to block up the Colorfall with boulders nearby.
Tan holds a city meeting, having Professor Heliotrope teach a lecture on Scrawl's potential threat. Heliotrope explains that if the scribble were to block up the Colorfall, the crayons' color source, they would no longer receive new color and would fade away until they became grey and transparent, and then cease to exist. Brown calls up volunteers to stop King Scrawl, and all of Yellow's friends volunteer.
As the group prepares for their voyage to the Colorfall on the SS R.G.B Huey, Yellow unintentionally sets the ship off while bringing in supplies. At a fork, the group takes the wrong route, so Yellow puts the obsessive Green in charge of guiding the ship, only to immediately crash it. It’s where they reach land from the shipwreck that the group and the rest of the crayons back at Color City begin to lose color.
In a desert, White examines across the mist more unfinished drawings the others have mistaken for monsters. The drawings guide the team out the mist, and they are colored as their reward. Further in the team’s journey, King Scrawl saves Yellow from the Trashasaur, the drawing-eating Dinosaur, to which Yellow understands King Scrawl and Gnat wanting color.
When clearing the misunderstanding between the rest of the group, now nearly-faded, Yellow helps them and the unfinished drawings try to pull out the boulders altogether. They succeed at breaking the dam and releasing the Colorfall, reviving themselves and Color City. Returning to a ceremony at the town with King Scrawl and Gnat now colored, the team is thanked and Yellow is awarded by Sheriff Tan and Heliotrope the honorary Medal of the Hero of Color City.
The crayons return back to reality where their owner Ben wakes up to see his once-unfinished drawings colored in. They’re stuck up on his wall, and as Ben grabs Yellow, presumably to color a new drawing, She and King Scrawl wink at each other for thanks.
Cast
Christina Ricci as Yellow, a timid yellow crayon who likes to sing
Daily also voices Ben's mother and the crayons Tutti Frutti and Neon Lime
Jessica Capshaw as Duck, an unfinished drawing who is Ricky's assistant
Craig Ferguson as Gnat, an insect-like unfinished drawing who is King Scrawl's advisor
David Kaye as Black, a gloomy black crayon and King Scrawl, an unfinished drawing who wears king's robes and is friends with Gnat
Robin Howard as Tangerine, Periwinkle and Aquamarine
John D. Eraklis as Navy Blue
Frank Gladstone as Refried Bean and Astronaut
Tom Lowell as the Sheriff, a brown crayon with cowboy clothes and has cowboy-like traits
Laura Lane as Horse
Josh Gladstone as Cow
Release
The Hero of Color City had a limited release, as well on iTunes and on demand on October 3, 2014.[3] The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 2, 2014.[4]
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a rating of 29%, based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 4.40/10.[5] On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 33 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[6]
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