In 2002, children who grew up watching VeggieTales were excited that a feature-length film was released. This was a big deal since there had never been a feature-length VeggieTales movie before. Episodes were contained to thirty minutes, which were usually two fifteen minute segments put together with a Silly Song in the middle. There was a lot of speculation as to how the movie would be handled before its release. Would it be an extended episode, or would the setup be different? How would they fit all our favorite characters into the plot? Would it be any good? Let’s take a look at Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie and find out.
It starts off with Bob driving Laura, Junior, Junior’s Dad, and some other kids to a concert. (It’s best if you just don’t question how produce are able to do things that require things like hands.) Laura is excited because she won a backstage pass to meet the singer, Twippo, and she rubs it in Junior’s face. Junior’s Dad hits Bob with his guitar and makes Bob crash the van. The group makes their way to a seafood restaurant where they call a tow truck. While they wait, they meet the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. The Pirates hear Bob and Dad arguing and Junior and Laura arguing, so they tell the group about a guy they helped out thousands of years ago. How old are these guys?
In Israel, Jonah the prophet brings messages from God to various towns. One day, God tells him to go to Nineveh, a nasty town in Assyria where they will slap people they hate- whether it be Israelites or themselves- with dead fish. Jonah hates the idea of going to Nineveh and tries to get out of it, but God tells him he must go. The next day, Jonah books a trip to Tarshish (on the coast of modern-day Spain) because it is as far away from Nineveh he can possibly sail to, as America had not yet been discovered. He convinces the Pirates to take him. Yay bribery!
Below deck, Jonah meets Khalil, a caterpillar-worm hybrid. Khalil takes an instant liking to Jonah, revering how close he is with God and how he always goes where God tells him to. Jonah, naturally, feels guilty. They sail into a storm, and Jonah admits that God told him to go to Nineveh and he’s running away from God. Because, of course, the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe who gave you explicit instructions to do this one thing wouldn’t check up on you. (I wonder how many times God facepalms a day.) Jonah walks the plank and the storm disappears. Before the Pirates can bring him back on board, a whale swallows Jonah and Khalil.
Inside the whale, Jonah has himself a pity party. He admits he should’ve done what he was told to do and go to Nineveh, and resigns himself to a slow death. Khalil tries to cheer him up, but Jonah is having none of it. An angelic gospel choir shows up and tells Jonah that God will give him a second chance. Three days later, the whale expels Jonah and Khalil. They make their way to Nineveh and run into the Pirates. Because of course the Pirates are there. The Pirates sneak Jonah into the city, and the four are promptly arrested for theft of cheese curls. You read that correctly.
At the trial, Jonah is able to deliver his message, saying that if they do not change their ways, God will wipe them off the face of the planet. The king is shocked to hear this and orders his people to change their ways and ask God to forgive them. Jonah and the Pirates are released, and Jonah sets up camp outside of town to watch God smite the Ninevites. Nothing happens. Jonah is extremely confused and upset that God has forgiven the Ninevites. (Did he really think God would do something right then and there? The Bible is full of stories that show God’s timing on things like this do not match up with our timing of things.) God provides a weed to shade Jonah from the sun, but Khalil eats it. Khalil says that God showed Jonah mercy and compassion, and the Ninevites deserve those as well. Jonah whines about how unfair everything is and wishes he was dead. Khalil is fed up at this point and leaves.
Back in the restaurant, Bob, Junior, Laura, and the rest are discussing what they learned when Twippo appears. He offers them a ride to the concert, and Junior offers his ticket to Laura. Twippo decides to give everyone a backstage pass (Was he not going to give them passes after letting them ride in the bus?) and he helps the Pirates end the story with a big musical number. How did the Pirates… and the stage… never mind. The end.
Bob the Tomato, voiced by Phil Vischer, is usually the cheery host of the show, but here he had to learn about compassion. He was angry with Dad Asparagus for not helping him navigate to the concert and blamed him for the reason they crashed the van. Actually, why was Bob even driving the van in the first place? He doesn’t have a kid. At least, not one we know about. Does he have a kid? Or is he the only vegetable that has a van big enough to accommodate the group who wanted to go to the concert? If so, why does he have a van if he doesn’t have a family? Does he own the church carpool van? Twippo seems like a singer marketed towards small children, so I don’t know why he would want to go to the concert. My guess is, they had no idea how else to make both of the main characters of the show appear in the movie. He wasn’t in the Esther episode of the show, but since this is a movie that was released in theaters and not a direct-to-video episode, I guess they had to have Bob show up somehow or children would riot. But they could’ve been more creative!
Larry the Cucumber, voiced by Mike Nawrocki, Pa Grape, and Mr. Lunt, both voiced by Phil Vischer, appear as the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. They told the veggies about when they helped Jonah. Seriously, how old are these guys? Or are they just making it all up? I wouldn’t put it past them to insert themselves into the story. They do this to teach Junior a lesson on compassion and mercy, but they also should’ve used the same story to teach Laura to listen to authority. They are obsessed with cheese curls. They don’t want to work, but they will do almost anything in exchange for cheese curls or money for cheese curls. The one thing I don’t understand (actually there are many things I don’t understand, but let’s stick with one for now) and I know I probably shouldn’t question it, but I will anyway, is this: if the Pirates don’t do anything, how and why do they have a ship? It’s implied that the trip to Tarshish was their first time sailing. And why does Pa get to be the captain when he doesn’t have any more experience than Larry or Mr. Lunt? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
Archibald Asparagus, voiced by Phil Vischer, appears as Jonah and Twippo. Which means a British character plays a Hebrew and a singer from Oklahoma. No, they do nothing to hide his accent. Archibald has always been a bit of a stick in the mud, and I don’t think they could’ve had anyone else play someone like Jonah. Sure they could’ve had Larry play Jonah since Larry usually plays the hero character, but they really did need a more mature vegetable in this role. But Archibald as Twippo is funny. Though I don’t know why they felt they needed Twippo to appear, other than they wanted a big musical number to end the show and couldn’t have the character of Jonah sing.
Khalil, voiced by Tim Hodge, is a caterpillar-worm hybrid, but he is okay with that now. I wonder if he will turn into a butterfly one day? He sells Jonah merchandise at various port towns. Things that run deep in his family include humor, insight, crime fighting, technical competency, digestion, and patience (but not that deep). He acts as Jonah’s conscience, and he eats the weed at the end of the story. He takes an instant liking to Jonah and declares himself Jonah’s “traveling buddy,” even though Jonah is not thrilled at the idea. Jonah cannot pronounce his name and calls him Carlisle instead.
Junior Asparagus, voiced by Lisa Vischer, is Laura’s jealous best friend. He is subjected to the Pirates’ lesson on mercy and compassion. He ends up giving Laura his ticket, not that it matters in the end. Though what were they going to do if Twippo hadn’t shown up and given everyone a backstage pass? I guess Junior and his dad would’ve hung out somewhere near the concert hall. Though, being a children’s movie and all, there really couldn’t have been a more realistic ending. If you’re the protagonist in a children’s movie or show, actions don’t really have consequences, and you can do whatever you want despite anything that happened earlier. What a horrible message to teach children.
Laura Carrot, voiced by Kristen Blegen, is Junior’s best friend. I’ve never been a big fan of Laura. I don't know why, I've just never really liked her as a character. She won a backstage pass to meet Twippo at the concert, but lost it after it blew out of an open window. I don’t know why she kept her window open while holding her ticket. Though it kind of is her fault for keeping it out in the open so she could rub it in her friends’ faces. Actions have consequences. That being said, what were they going to do once they got to the concert? Was Bob going to drive her back to her house? Was Bob going to hang around outside the gate with her? Were they going to leave her alone? That’s how kidnappings happen! The Pirates should’ve taken the opportunity to teach Laura to listen to authority figures, since Junior’s dad told her to put the ticket away and to stop bragging about it, but like Jonah, she didn’t listen. Just because you're not evil in a children's movie doesn't mean you should get everything you want.
Before I talk about the songs, let me make one thing clear: none of the actors are professional singers and you can tell. The point of any song in a VeggieTales show is to be fun, which most of them are. “Message From the Lord” is a fun, upbeat song that introduces the main character of Jonah, who sings his message to the town of Joppa. “It Cannot Be” is the forgettable song Jonah sings when he tries to get out of going to Nineveh. It’s passable, and Phil Vischer does a decent enough job of singing, but it’s no “Let It Go.” “Second Chances” is the gospel choir song of the movie. It’s extremely random and kind of hilarious. They did bring in professional singers from the group Anointed to voice the angels for this song, but it still feels like a VeggieTales song. “Jonah Was a Prophet” is the big musical number they use to end the story that Twippo sings with the Pirates. It sums up the entire story in three minutes. “In the Belly of the Whale” is the Newsboys song that plays over the end credits. I loved this song when I was a child, and I still listen to it regularly. It’s super fun to sing along and dance to. At one point, you can hear the Pirates singing “Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything,” which is the Silly Song that first introduced them as characters. The last song is “The Credits Song,” and is the Pirates making fun of how songs that play under the credits rarely have anything to do with the movie you just saw.
Like all VeggieTales shows, this movie is bright and colorful and will distract the kids. The animation is good, especially for 2002 standards. Other CG animated movies released this year include Ice Age and Barbie as Rapunzel. Like I mentioned in my Hoodwinked! review, early CG animation had its problems, but smart companies used these limitations to create classic movies. In 2002, CG had come a long way, but it was still a good idea to use animals, toys, or vegetables rather than people in your projects. Now, I did watch this on YouTube, and while I managed to get a decent quality video, the animation is probably better on a DVD. But this is also one of the last BigIdea productions released before the company was sold to Classic Media a year later. (Classic Media would later be acquired by DreamWorks, and DreamWorks would later be sold to NBCUniversal.) And there are plenty of references for the adults watching with their children.
Before I continue, I just want to say that I’ve written some really weird and somewhat awkward sentences when I’ve reviewed stuff for this site, but this movie takes the cake. I lost count of how many times I told myself, “I can’t believe I just wrote that.” If you have made it this far into the review, I just want to thank you for sticking with me.
I liked how the Pirates ended their story abruptly. This mimics how the book of Jonah in the Bible doesn’t really end, it just kind of stops. Jonah 4:11 (the last verse of the book) says, “And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left- and also many animals?” Jonah’s reply is not recorded, and we do not know if he learned his lesson in the end or not. Like in the movie, Jonah tells God, “It’s not fair! I wish I were dead!” and then it just ends. It leaves room for the reader (or viewer in this case) to answer the questions, who should you show mercy and compassion to? Who deserves forgiveness and a second chance? What should you do if you see someone receive mercy, even if you feel like they do not deserve it?
I’m SJ and these are my real thoughts on Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie.