Miao: The Movie

***Miao: The Movie*** is a 2017 American animated action comedy film produced by Redman Films in its debut feature for Columbia Pictures, distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film was directed by Dane Martin from a screenplay from Martin and Reece Edwards, and features the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Chris Rock, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi and Lucy Liu. The film revolves around four anthropomorphic animals who find themselves as the only hope to save their city from being possessed by an ancient dark witch.

*Miao: The Movie* premiered at the 70th Cannes Film Festival on May 27, 2017 and was released in the United States on June 9, 2017. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its animation, humor and characters, but criticised its naive and predictable plot and writing. It grossed $175.7 million worldwide over its $40 million budget, making it the ninth highest-grossing animated film of 2017. The film’s commercial success resulted in a franchise, including two sequels and several short films.

## Plot

Centuries ago in an alternate version of Earth fully populated by anthropomorphic animals, a group of human-like gods with supernatural powers used to rule the planet, one of them being Lady Charlene, a dark witch who has a limitless power to cast any spell from her hands. However, Lady Charlene slowly becomes bored of having to work in a group and decides to finally take over the world. When the other gods start to realise that almost their entire population of cats start to disappear, they discovered that Lady Charlene was behind it and immediately exiled her from the group. In retaliation, Lady Charlene quickly forms an army of ninja warriors and continue to possess every animal in existence. Despite the strength of Lady Charlene’s army of warriors, the other gods manage to overcome and defeat her, resulting in her remains being turned into stone.

In the present day, the stone statue of Lady Charlene is reported to be stolen outside the city hall of Felineton. Meanwhile, twenty-year-old cat Miao decides to camp-out with his friends Rippy, Komo, Mus and Haw to kill time during their summer vacation. The following afternoon, they leave their house with a rented minivan but end up arriving at the wrong campsite due to a faulty GPS system. As the sun begins to set, the five had started to set up their tents and fireplace. When Miao decides to venture deep into the forest to find wood for the fireplace, he hears a strange chanting in the distance. Curious, he sneaks closer towards the sound and realises that a number of black figures are summoning a ritual to revive Lady Charlene from a cauldron.

After the summoning ritual is complete, Lady Charlene thanks the Dark Chasers, the descendants of her army of warriors, for reviving her and informs her followers about their plans to destroy Felineton and eventually the world. When Miao tries to take a closer peek at their gathering, Lady Charlene immediately spots him and orders the Dark Chasers to capture him. With Miao on the run, he frantically tells his friends to run as fast as possible to the minivan. After driving away from the campsite and having a brief confrontation with the Dark Chasers, Miao realises that Mus is missing but ends up having a heated argument on whether to drive back and rescue him, although Miao later finally decides not to take the risk.

Back at the forest, Lady Charlene kidnaps Mus and possesses him using her powers. They then plot on their intentions to destroy Felineton and with the help of a puppeted Mus travel towards the city hall. The following morning, Miao wakes up to a news report on local TV, asking citizens to be vigilant as the Dark Chasers have taken control of the city’s Persian cat mayor, Jeff, and caused reports of many innocent citizens who were missing. The news broadcast is then hijacked by Lady Charlene, who gives Miao a warning that two more of his friends Komo and Haw have also been captured and demands him to run or face defeat. Miao gets confused and surprised, only to be interrupted by a panicked Rippy tells him that they should flee.

Just when Miao and Rippy begin driving off towards the city limits, they are once again confronted by an army of Dark Chasers. While both of them manage to ward them off from the minivan successfully, Miao gets injured from the tranquiliser spell cast on him. They stop at a nearby tourist trap where the shopkeeper offers to give Miao first aid. Meanwhile in Felineton, the President orders a military attack on the Dark Chasers after the authorities there were unable to defeat them, but fails. With t Felineton in ruins, the Dark Chasers realise that Miao and Rippy have survived and escaped, much to Lady Charlene’s dismay. Later that night, Miao and Rippy end up booking a room at a motel with no cars in it, unbeknownst to the fact that the motel owner is a Dark Chaser in disguise. While having lemonades at the motel pool, Miao wonders what they should do now, before they are abruptly kidnapped and fall unconscious.

Miao and Rippy wake up in a mysterious environment surrounded by purple fog, when Lady Charlene welcomes them to her mindscape, which stores the soul and memories of every animal and god. When Miao and Rippy are reunited with the others and encounter other animals who are also trapped, Rippy wonders why Lady Charlene is in their mindscapes, but Lady Charlene explains that it is *her* own mindscape, as all of them are now under her control and why she is doing all of this in the first place. While their possessed bodies in the real world were being used by Lady Charlene and her Dark Chasers to track down animals around the limits of Felineton, Miao and Rippy find ways to break out from the mindscape, but their attempts fail and Miao concedes to his fate and becomes emotional. When Miao holds tightly onto Rippy around the mindscape, a beam of light forms on the floor and Miao tells the other three to forms a circle around Lady Charlene in an effort to escape the mindscape. This sends a signal to Lady Charlene’s mind, annoying her and resulting in them fighting against her. Miao then finds a shard to reflect the strangling spell, causing Lady Charlene to accidentally free them from the mindscape.

With Miao and his friends all back into their original bodies and the entire Felineton population restored to their form but confused, Miao successfully convinces everyone to fight against Lady Charlene to take back the city, but is once again strangled by Lady Charlene, who gives him one last chance and they fight on a one-to-one battle. Realising that she accidentally gave him powers too after inadvertently casting a spell, he then successfully banishes Lady Charlene to the realm of the gods, declared a hero and is rewarded by Jeff with a paycheck for his efforts. Miao uses the paycheck to move into a new apartment with his friends in New York City and settle in the big city. In the post-credits scene, Lady Charlene regains consciousness and plans to return back to Earth to take revenge on Miao and his friends.

## Voice cast

* Ryan Reynolds as Miao, a 20-year-old orange tabby cat who finds himself on the run from Lady Charlene. He later gains powers after Lady Charlene accidentally transfers some of her power to him.
* Chris Rock as Rippy, Miao’s straight man rooster friend who does not approve of Miao’s intentions to camp-out during the summer break. He later teams up with Miao to stop Lady Charlene from taking over Felineton.
* Keegan Michael-Key as Komo, a komodo dragon who is one of Miao’s friends.
* Steve Buscemi as Mus, a polar bear who is one of Miao’s friends.
* Patton Oswalt as Haw, Miao’s quiet and introvert monkey friend.
* Lucy Liu as Lady Charlene, a witch who has the ability to cast dark spells and intends to take over Felineton. She becomes Miao’s archenemy when Miao inadvertently discovers her revival by the Dark Chasers.
* Will Ferrell as Jeff, the Persian cat mayor of Felineton

## Production

Reece Edwards first came up with the concept of *Miao: The Movie* in 2008, after reading a Malaysian webcomic about an orange tabby cat and his two hamsters. Edwards initially pitched the idea to Sony Pictures Animation as a potential live-action/CGI hybrid film a year later, but it failed to materialise even after four years of attempting to pitch the idea to other studios.

In late 2013, Dane Martin left DreamWorks Animation and was looking for potential animated film ideas. Edwards eventually ended up pitching the story to Martin and the film began development soon after, initially set for a 2018 release. It was eventually fast-tracked and pushed up to its final June 2017 release date.

After Redman formed a four-film production deal with Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Imageworks was announced to be on board to provide computer animation for the film in February 2015. SPI would eventually animate the remaining films as part of Redman and Columbia’s agreement, as well as sequels in the *Miao* franchise.

## Release

### Theatrical

*Miao: The Movie* made its world premiere out of competition at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France on May 27, 2017 and was released in traditional and IMAX formats on June 9, 2017 in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing.

### Home media

*Miao: The Movie* was released on DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray on September 5, 2017 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

## Transcripts

### Main

To view the main transcript of the film, click here.

### Trailers

To view the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.