Flawed animated musical can ‘Sing'

A highly produced, expensive and corporate-financed tribute to struggling live theater that - if all goes on schedule - will pack movie theaters this week, leaving three people at your local high school's version of “A Christmas Carol.'”

Cynicism is the enemy of “Sing,”' an animated musical that is built on the barest of plots, and the most predictable of story structures. To watch the first 10 minutes is to know the ending, which borrows equally from “Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo” and “Sister Act.”' (But doesn't soar as high as either.)

And yet, there will be applause in your cinema at the end, and maybe a few tears. Because as little as production company Illumination Entertainment seems to care about a good original well-told story, they know how to please a crowd.

Illumination also made “Minions,'' another animated musical that the masses liked a lot more than movie critics. Rather than finding a strong artistic vein, the studio taps into the zeitgeist. At least half of the 110 minutes in “Sing”' feature a repeat of the same basic gag: An animal, often playing against type or fronting a funny backdrop, singing a recent pop hit or very recognizable one from the past.

What narrative exists is piled on the shoulders of Buster Moon, a koala bear who owns a failing Art Deco theater - now wedged like the “Up” house inside a modern neighborhood that's growing vertically. There's almost no attention to clever world-building detail in this animals-only kingdom; you'll need to watch the superior “Zootopia” again for that.

With the theater on the edge of foreclosure, Moon hatches a plan to save it with a singing contest. A mix-up with the prize money amount - instead of plot turns, this movie just piles misunderstandings upon misunderstandings - brings every amateur singer with a dream to Moon's door. Then it must all come crashing to pieces, before the obligatory last-act miracle and bring-the-house-down show.

Moon, and his bumbling staff, don't deserve this redemption. The theater owner is basically running a pyramid scheme, and he knows it. If the protagonist didn't appear in the form of the cuddliest creature in the animal kingdom, voiced by one of the most likable actors in Hollywood (Matthew McConaughey), he would have no one's support.