Dreamworks has created some of the biggest animated franchises in the last twenty years or so. The Shrek/Puss n Boots and the How to Train Your Dragon franchise have been nominated for many Academy Awards and have enthralled children and families for decades. Now they have teamed up with Netflix for their latest animated film Orion and the Dark.

Orion (Jacob Tremblay) is an awkward, nervous, neurotic, and shy boy. He is literally afraid of his own shadow along with bugs, frogs, heights, driving/riding in vehicles, and many other things. This makes it hard for him to talk to a girl at school he likes named Sally. They are supposed to go on a field trip to a planetarium. The night before they are supposed to go he finally confronts the thing he is most afraid of though, and that is the dark. 

This film tries to say that things we aren’t able to comprehend like darkness, sweet dreams, light, sleep, insomnia, strange sounds, or quiet are a group of anthropomorphized entities that control our lives at night. The key aspect is darkness voiced by Paul Walter Houser. All the characters like light (Ike Barenholtz)  sweet dreams (Angela Bassett) sleep (Natasha Demetriou) insomnia (Natasha Faxon) and quiet (Aparna Nancerla) are perceptions of our lifetime lives from our childhood to adulthood. This story puts them into a whole new perspective. 

Films like Inside Out and Elemental have taken this type of anthropomorphized character and have turned them into memorable movies children and families will love for generations to come. This movie isn’t on their level but it’s very good. As a kid and still as an adult, I am afraid of heights. I have vertigo and I would be completely afraid if I were confronted by a literal embodiment of this I wouldn’t know what to do. That’s why this movie moved me so much.

A key element of this story though is not being afraid of things, it’s confronting your fears. As parents, it’s their job to help children confront their fears. This movie asks its viewers to believe quite a bit about being afraid and confronting your fears. Parents and children alike have to play a big part in this. The anthropomorphized characters are asked to play a huge part in this process as well. It’s a bit of a strange situation. I found it a tad confusing.

The voice cast in this animated movie is very good. Jacob Tremblay is famous for his role in Room opposite Academy Award winner Brie Larson where he plays her son and they both live in a shed. Well, he has also voiced other animated characters in his career in Luca where he plays the title character. Once again playing the title character Orion he has a lot of heavy lifting to do regarding this complicated story. His scene partner for a lot of it is Emmy Award-winning, Paul Walter Houser. His role as dark is harder than it looks. Even darkness has emotions and fears he has to get over.

A couple of key parts of the story is a sketchbook that Orion uses to get his fears and phobias out on paper. How he’s got a bully in school and so forth. This sketchbook allows him to express everything that bothers him. A different style of animation was used during scenes with the sketchbook in them. It was a nice change from the rest of the movie. The main style of animation was fine and it didn’t blow me away but was solid. It just looks like so many other animated films I’ve seen recently.

Orion and the Dark is a good movie with a good message about confronting your fears no matter how old you are or what you are. Even darkness can confront its fears. This is similar to other animated films in the past regarding the embodiment characters.  The voice work from the entire cast is solid with Tremblay and Houser as the standouts. This will be a fun movie for kids and families to see during a slow period of the year, February. Netflix and Dreamworks might have a good film on their hands. 

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen