'The Peanuts Movie:' Familiar characters, nostalgia meld with modern effects

Imagine a nostalgic postcard from the past, traveling at the speed of light, and you’ll have some idea of what to expect from “The Peanuts Movie.”

The first feature film in 35 years based on the late Charles Schulz’s iconic comic strip opens nationwide Friday, with dozens of classic characters and storylines from the strip’s 65-year run packed into 93 minutes.

Conceived as a labor of love by Schulz’s son Craig eight years ago, and dedicated to his father’s artistic legacy, the film aims to give the strip’s fans worldwide what they love and expect while still appealing to modern audiences. And it does a surprisingly good job on both counts.

Good old Charlie Brown, the self-described “wishy-washy loser,” struggles to court the ever-elusive Little Red-Haired Girl in gentle, sweet and sometimes sentimental sequences slightly reminiscent of TV sitcoms from the late 1950s and early ‘60s.

This is a world where the school dance contest and awards assembly loom large in the everyday lives of essentially nice, wholesome kids. This is not the universe of “The Simpsons,” “South Park” or even “Minions.”

“The Peanuts Movie” might not even take place in our time, since not one of the kids ever tweets, texts or opens up a laptop.

Meanwhile, Charlie’s daydreaming dog Snoopy takes to the skies as the World War I Flying Ace in relentless pursuit of the Red Baron and an attempt to rescue the fair poodle pilot Fifi. Since the entire film is in 3D, with computer-generated imagery, the film’s aerial battles, with realistically rendered landscapes shown below, definitely maintain a frantic 21st-century pace that younger audiences will appreciate.

And yet, true to the comic strip, Snoopy’s doghouse still serves as his Sopwith Camel biplane, always firmly anchored at the edge of the frame so that he’s never actually shown flying, but the illusion is unmistakable.

Woodstock, of course, heads up the World War I Flying Ace’s ground crew of clumsy but loyal little yellow birds in some of film’s funniest slapstick scenes.

Director Steve Martino, whose credits include “Ice Age: Continental Drift,” paces the film well, speeding up for the Snoopy sequences and taking it easy during Charlie Brown’s everyday adventures.

The script by Craig Schulz, his son Bryan and Cornelius Uliano, is consistently economical and efficient, folding in everyone’s favorite parts of the “Peanuts” mythos without bogging down. There are slower moments, to be sure, but that feels right for the more sentimental scenes.

The Red Baron episodes are blended in with the rest of the movie in two clever ways. First, each transition begins a new chapter in the novel that Snoopy’s always writing (on an old-fashioned portable typewriter). The book begins - naturally - with “It was a dark and stormy night.” Secondly, a runaway toy plane, which looks exactly like the Red Baron’s, soars over the playground at Charlie’s school, helping tie in the World War I scenes with the children’s ongoing story.

No matter who your favorite “Peanuts” character might be, you’re not likely to be disappointed. The roster includes not only such mainstays as the crabby Lucy, philosophical Linus, piano-playing Schroeder, Charlie’s little sister Sally and Peppermint Patty and her sidekick Marcie, but also such classics as the inevitably dirty Pigpen and the strip’s early cast members: Patty, Violet and Shermy. Franklin, famed as the strip’s first African-American character, introduced in 1968, enjoys some prominent cameos.

Continuing the tradition established in nearly 50 animated television specials, two brief animated TV series and four previous feature films based on the “Peanuts” comic strip, the film uses children’s voices rather than name actors for all of the characters.

The voices of the unseen adults, as always, are rendered as instrumental music, supplied for this film by Trombone Shorty. The one actual adult voice on the soundtrack belongs to Bill Melendez, co-creator of several Charlie Brown TV specials, providing the squeaks and squawks of Snoopy and Woodstock, as he did for the television versions.

Fans who worry about the movie being true to the comic strip and TV productions should be reassured by the film’s early moments, with a skating pond scene, Charlie’s latest attempt to fly a kite and even a bit of Vince Guaraldi’s jazz piano from the “Peanuts” TV specials. It’s been said many times that the incredible audience appeal and lasting power of “Peanuts,” celebrating its 65th anniversary this year, lies in the recognizable, flawed but lovable characters.

Introduced in 1950, the strip was written and drawn by Charles Schulz (who settled in Sonoma County in 1958) for nearly 50 years, until his death in 2000. Since then, reprints have continued to run in some 2,000 newspapers.

One line from Linus in the film succinctly sums up the heart and soul of the comic strip, when he urges the ever-worried Charlie Brown to consider “the wild possibility that you’re a good person and people like you.”

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.