HIGH DEF UNIVERSE

Young Savva lives in a forest village with his mother. One night, hyenas come to collect the residents and cage them. Savva’s mother hides him under the floor boards of their house and tells him not to move. But like any little kid, Savva leaves the safety of his hiding place and tries to help his mother and the villagers. The hyenas find him trying to break everyone out of the cage and chase him into the woods where he’s rescued at the last minute by a white wolf. One that was thought to be a myth.

As Savva learns more about the wolf, Angee, they encounter Puffy, a small pink animal, the mosquito King and others who are also enchanted creatures in search of the one magician in the land who can help them. When the three-headed monkey queen hears they are in her forest, she sends her most trusted advisor to declare war on her rivals. When Savva is captured by the white wolf’s father, the king, Savva finds out that the wolves aren’t mere myths, but people who can transform into wolves. In the midst of an epic battle between the wolves and the monkeys, Savva and his friends discover that life isn’t what it seems, bravery is within each of them, and true friendship can come from anywhere.

Hero Quest is a mess of a movie. The story jumps all over the place, it’s hard to follow and it just makes no sense. For a 90-minute movie, I think I spent 85 of those minutes trying to figure out what was going on and the other five minutes just waiting for the movie to be over. I have never wanted to just turn a movie off more. Even the voices of the characters didn’t work. Milla Jovavich as Savva just seemed weird, and Whoopi Goldberg as the three-headed monkey queen was super creepy. Translated from the original Russian story, Savva didn’t work in English. Something must have gotten lost in the translation. A small child might like it, not for the story, but for the cute little creatures and the animation. They will get lost in the imagination, in the excitement and in the fantasy.

The widescreen presentation of Hero Quest is the best part about the movie. The animation was good, the colors were bright and sharp and the details were really well done. In spite of the not-so-great story, the animation and the picture is what brought it all to life.

The English 5.1 Dolby Digital was really low. I had to turn the volume on the television way up just to hear what was going on. Once I found the right (really high) level, I didn’t have to adjust it again to hear. What was really distracting were the copious amount of accents in the movie. I don’t think it added anything to the audio to have so many different voices. Hero Quest is also available in Russian 5.1 Dolby Digital and there are no subtitles included.

I didn’t expect much from the special features section of the movie, so I wasn’t disappointed when there was only one included.