WHAT’S IT ABOUT

A small woodland creature and a majestic bird, two natural sworn enemies of the Valley, magically trade places and set off on an adventure of a lifetime.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

Swapped, the new animated feature from Netflix and Skydance Animation, is not a perfect film. But it is an important one. And right now, in this exact moment in this country, important may matter more than perfect. Nathan Greno is the Director who developed Tangled, which was released in 2010. After that, he waited sixteen years for an opportunity to work again on a project he created with the idea of using animal-anthromorphic characters (animals that assimilate with plant and animal-created wonders). The animals live, they shine, they carry sorrow. The universe has brought these animal wonders into the current events and realities that divide our society by fear and isolation from one another; so in essence, the universe provided an opportunity for Nathan Greno’s work that reflects on the angst and pain caused by contemporary fear-based division within our communities. The story begins with Ollie, a round, curious little creature from a species called Pookoo — imagine something between a groundhog and the softest teddy bear you ever loved as a child. Ollie is voiced by Oscar-winner Michael B. Jordan, and from the first moment he opens his mouth, you feel the warmth and the weight of this character. Ollie is the kind of young Black boy we see in every neighborhood — brilliant, restless, full of questions that the adults around him have given up asking. He builds his own underwater breathing device through failure after failure just to see what lives beneath the surface of the water. That scene alone, quiet and determined and beautiful, tells you exactly who Ollie is before a single word of plot arrives. His father, Caloo — voiced with wonderful, familiar frustration by Cedric the Entertainer — wants Ollie to stay with his own kind. The Pookoo do not trust the Javan birds. The Javan do not trust the Pookoo. There are rules about who belongs where, who gets what, and who cannot be trusted under any circumstances. Ollie’s grandmother, voiced by the legendary Táta Vega, tells him the old story: once, enormous ancient creatures called Dzo walked the earth like moving forests, and they carried glowing pods that allowed every animal to transform into another species. Every creature understood every other creature’s pain and hunger and joy. Then a fire wolf killed the Dzo, banished the rest, and the animals — no longer able to step inside each other’s lives — became afraid. Afraid of what they did not know. Afraid of what looked different. Sound familiar? Swapped is now where it stops being just a kid’s movie and starts showing how valuable it is to recognize our past hurts. The “Pookoo” birds, though seemingly wise, did not know the truth behind their fear for the “Javan” (another bird) is that they were fearful of becoming vulnerable again after being hurt by the Javan and the subsequent loss of their berries due to them all working together again with the changed “adult” that was Ollie who showed the Javan how to eat the seed pods because it was starving as a young bird. Years later, Ollie lived with the memories of that act of kindness in a world where you can be punished for acts of kindness when people are separated by judge-made rules. His father turned his back on him because he judged him, too. Anyone else who has been judged for showing kindness to someone outside the community’s walls knows what it is like to have pain. Accidental body-swapping between Ivy (voiced exuberantly by Juno Temple) and Ollie catalyzes an expected adventure but also deeply affects them both. They realize not only do they have emotions, but they are both hungry. The structures they blame each other for also created a mutual prison. While Ollie had been seeking connection prior to the swap, he now must foster trust with the very individual he primarily resented for the grief which occurred prior. The reverse is also true with Ivy. As they make their way towards a potentially fruitful grove of Dzo pods near a grand waterfall, they overcome numerous obstacles, including a vicious fire wolf and a den filled with teeth and shadows. However, the greatest obstacle they face is fear, that resides in equal measure within both. Here’s the part we need to say out loud: The heartbeat of this film is a Black rhythm. Michael B. Jordan, Cedric the Entertainer, Justina Machado, Tracy Morgan, and Táta Vega create the – now, get this – voice cast of this film, but make no mistake, this was intentional and a serious decision. Given the cultural context in which Black stories, Black schools, Black institutions, and Black self-identity are under siege from all angles, and at the same time, this film elevates a Black voice to the forefront of the narrative regarding understanding and finding empathy, community resilience, and the danger of allowing fear to influence your laws. In what Tracy Morgan’s character – a lonely fish named Boogle – expresses about the desire to be understood by someone – anyone – is not merely a comedic moment, it is actually an expression of longing and is something that all audiences of African descent will feel and connect with without needing to read the subtitles. The fact that this story lives inside a fantasy world with glowing plants and deer made of birch bark and elephants built from redwood trees does not hide its meaning. It amplifies it. Black artists have always used fantasy, folklore, and myth to carry truths that the world was not ready to hear directly. Swapped sits in that tradition proudly. Ollie’s grandmother’s origin story of the Dzo — ancient, gentle giants of wisdom who were destroyed by violence and whose absence created a world of fear — echoes the kind of origin stories that Black communities have passed down for generations about what was taken from us, and what we lost when the connections between people were deliberately broken. The animation is breathtaking. Water moves like it remembers being alive. Fire behaves like a creature with its own grudges. The animal character designs — each one part living thing, part growing plant — are some of the most original visual ideas in recent animated film. The underwater sequence early in the film is quietly extraordinary, the kind of scene that reminds you why animation, at its best, can take you places no camera ever could. Jordan and Temple find a real rhythm together. Their back-and-forth does not feel scripted — it feels earned. The film’s screenplay, credited to three writers, does carry some of the weight you would expect from a story built on familiar bones. The opening freeze-frame with the “you’re probably wondering how I got here” voiceover is an eye-roll that the film quickly grows past. The villain — the fire wolf — is fearsome but not fully explored until the third act drops a reveal that genuinely lands hard and reframes everything you thought you understood. That moment lifts the film above the crowd of similar stories it could have stayed comfortable being. Trust is another area in which the film lacks. It is hard to see the weight of many of the quieter scenes and moments as director Greno does not give them time to develop independently, and when the emotional danger of Ollie and Ivy is sufficient enough, he tries to generate action movie thrills and suspense by going back to strong elements that have already been seen. The script also attempts to tell you how to respond or feel when the animation has already provided you with enough ways to interpret or react. As such, I would think that these kinds of flaws and/or mistakes can indeed be forgiven because the film obviously has a sincere intent towards its audience, and that is the most essential thing that I can say about this movie. We live in a time of fear, with people blaming others for their pain just because they don’t look, eat, or live like them. We’re teaching our kids to build walls as a form of protection. The movie Swapped illustrates that through two creatures who must live in each other’s worlds, they realize that, contrary to what you might expect, just because they are different doesn’t mean that they share pain in some way. It is a profound lesson and perhaps the most beautiful animated film I’ve ever seen from Netflix, and produced by black voices that fully understand how it feels to be misunderstood, mistrusted, and still need to be kind to others. Take your children. Take yourself. Take someone who needs reminding that understanding another person does not mean surrendering yourself — it means expanding. Swapped is not just a good film for the family couch on a Saturday afternoon. It is the right film for this exact moment in history. And that, above all, the beautiful visuals and the brilliant voice performances, is what makes it essential.

OUR RATING – A REFLECTIVE 8.5