A Town Called Panic (Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar 2010) ***

Dir. Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar

I'm not sure what kind of narcotics one needs to be on to come up with the inspired lunacy that is A Town Called Panic, but I sure wouldn't mind a few of them to be distributed to some of the mainstream filmmakers that populate the multiplexes with bland retreads. This is one of the oddest animated films I've seen, but when it works, it is an absolutely hilarious adventure.

A Town Called Panic is a stop motion animated feature that follows the adventures of three plastic toys - an Indian, a Cowboy, and a Horse, all of whom live in the same house. Trouble starts when Cowboy and Indian throw a surprise birthday party for Horse and accidentally buy 50 million bricks. The bricks collapse and destroy their house and in the midst of rebuilding it, one of their walls gets stolen.This leads to a series of zany events in which they have to track down the stolen wall.

There is some really bizarre stuff in this movie. Horse is considered an equal to the others. He takes showers and stretches out on the couch. He's taking music lessons because he is in love with Madame Longray (also a horse, the film isn't THAT weird). The adventure to find their stolen wall takes them through a forest, down to the center of the earth and to a remote icy climate where evil scientists are traveling around in a large mechanical penguin that can throw large snowballs very long distances.

Thankfully, the movie is funny enough to keep the viewer engaged. Much of that can be attributed to the fantastic vocal work. I've never had a problem with foreign animated films being dubbed, but I'm certainly glad that was not done in this case, because the original voice cast is so incredibly good. Particularly good is filmmaker Stephane Aubier's hilarious French cowboy combo accent, which is funny every single time the character speaks. The crude animation adds to the film’s charm, as the characters awkwardly make their way around on the flat plastic bases that connect their feet.

If the film has any flaw, it's that it cannot possibly maintain the consistently funny tone for the full feature length running time. Some of the jokes get a little repetitive and others just fall completely flat, including the finale which was a bit of a letdown. Still, this is the kind of wildly original filmmaking that deserves to be appreciated and encouraged. I’d rather watch a hundred of these than see one more minute of Shrek.