I love seeing films that try to experiment and do something different to help them stand out. When I heard about the animated film The Stolen Lyric I was intrigued to what they were setting out to accomplish. Could director Chase Peter Garrettson manage to make something like this work or would it miss the note all together?

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The Stolen Lyric is an animated anti-corporate rock movie musical like no other and updates the medieval ballads of Robin Hood mashup-style, by transforming an epic 555 song fragments from 129 iconic artists into movie dialogue. Forget stealing from the rich to feed the poor: charismatic front man Rob and his rock band “The Merry" take from the corporate fat cats holding culture hostage and give the power back to the people in a rotten tale of brotherhood, betrayal, greed, lust, and general mayhem. Want a fight? You’ve got one. I liked the idea of this film and while it is an impressive undertaking to make it work I was not able to fully get invested. I am not sure if it is the way it is constantly transition songs or what, but it was really hard for me to stick with it at times.

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As someone who loves animation and does art myself I loved the look and feel of it with the characters all having their own individual style while still feeling simplistic in the best possible way. The songs work well to tell the story, but unlike a usual musical using existing music this close together the constant change in music and tone doesn’t always work. I love all the music here and that helped make up for is as you will find yourself singing along more than really following the discussion it is trying to convey which can be an issue for some.

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This is one of those movies that clearly took an insane amount of work to put together from the animation and the amount of time it took to pick out the music and put it together and for that alone people should check it out. For those that love musicals or just great music then give it a shot and decide for yourself as it is an interesting piece of unique cinema that will work for some and maybe not for others, but you decide.

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The Stolen Lyric is currently available on YouTube and Amazon now.