Sing

Directed by Garth Jennings, Sing follows a struggling promoter (Matthew McConaughey’s Buster Moon) as he concocts a plan to save his family’s theater by holding a talent show for aspiring crooners. Filmmaker Jennings, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a perpetually affable endeavor that benefits from its brisk pace, eye-popping animation, and raft of agreeable voice performances, with, in terms of the latter, McConaughey’s terrific work as the sympathetic central character matched by an engaging supporting cast that includes, among others, Reese Witherspoon, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, and Seth MacFarlane. And while the picture is sporadically just a little too slick and frenetic for comfort, with this particularly true of a few larger-than-life action sequences, Sing, which builds towards a thoroughly engrossing and satisfying closing stretch, predominantly comes off as an entertaining animated musical that fares a whole lot better than one might’ve initially anticipated.

*** out of ****