Illumination Entertainment jumped into the animation game in 2010 with "Despicable Me" to challenge DreamWorks and Pixar and they made a big splash. They released some rather flat movies after that, but they'd already established that they could make a hit. "Sing" is proof that they only needed the right story with the right characters and they could be back in the conversation without a "Despicable Me" derivative.

In "Sing" a koala named Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) was a struggling theater producer. He was trying to keep his dream afloat of running a successful theater, but he kept producing terrible acts. Then, with his back against the wall and his theater in danger, a brilliant idea coupled with a typo gave him the talent needed to make a hit.

"Sing" was comical, upbeat, and had great music. With actors like Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, and others lending their voices, the names were certainly there. But it would be the singing voices that stole the show. It's something about the right musical numbers that makes everything come alive.

This date night was going to be an unexpected twofer. First on our list we saw La La Land and just loved it so we stuck to the musical genre and next on our list was the lighter side of comedy with the animation feature Sing. Neither Mrs. Shullivan or I are fans of 3-D films but this was the only format being offered at 10:00 PM so we went for it. It took me about 15 minutes to adjust to the 3D format even though I have tried it a few times before, and my opinion has not changed. In my opinion the 3D format does not add any value to a film and by the sparse theater crowd I assume most are in agreement with me. Producers have attempted the 3D format for more than 60 years now with little success and I will be glad when the format is abandoned and the editors rely on content quality and not CGI.

The film Sing is great and it will appeal to a vast crowd from the age of 3 to 103. After I had adjusted to the 3D format and we got to know the animal characters and the story line I for one just forgot that it was an animated feature and I sat back and watched the film progress in a very positive light. There are some big name stars lending their voices and I am sure they are proud of their finished product.

Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) owns a theater for live performances that lately he has been unable to sustain paying his debts so the bank is after him to pay up or the bank will repossess Buster's dream theater. Buster's late father had worked extremely hard in his car wash across the street from the theater to fulfill Buster's dream to open the theater and Buster needed to pull off the biggest hit of his life if he were to keep his dream theater out of the bankers grasp. Each of the animal characters has a story to tell. Each of the animal characters also has a great voice and a personal life that the winning prize money if they were to win the sing off would take care of.

The plot is simple so the children should be able to follow along relatively easy, all the animated animal characters were adorable. There are also some bad guys besides the bankers who want their hands on the prize money, and this just adds more humor and excitement to this cute little animated feature.

The songs were great, the story line very heartwarming, and the animated characters were all cute and cuddly. Mrs. Shullivan and I ended our date night on a high note for this twofer evening. I give the film an 8 out of 10 rating, taking two points off for making me watch the film in 3D which did nothing to enhance this viewers experience.

If you like this review I also wrote one on the first film we saw tonight which was La La Land.

Took me a while to come round to watching 'Sing'. It looked very interesting, and animation and musicals are things there is a real personal fondness for. Why did it take so long to watch it? Being behind with my film watching and hearing very divisive opinions on how good it was or not.

Seeing 'Sing' for myself finally with an open mind, from personal opinion it was an enjoyable film with many good elements but has a few things that stop it from being even better. It really does soar fantastically when it does work, which it does a vast majority of the time, but doesn't completely sing with a few things that weren't given quite enough attention. While opinions seem mostly mixed to positive, it is easy to see why people will find fault with it. As far as 2016 animated films go, it's a good one and one of the better ones but there are far superior ones overall.

Let's start with the positives, which are a great many. The animation is wonderful, it's bright, colourful, rich in detail and with slick character designs and some parts in the musical numbers have some imagination. Absolutely loved the soundtrack, which was incredibly varied which was great (from the Beatles and Katy Perry to Puccini and Stevie Wonder, amongst many others) and they are not just great songs on their own but the renditions of them have so much passion and heart (even remarkably fresh takes on songs that are done to death in talent shows).

Most of the writing is good with something for both kids (younger and a little bit older) and adults. Parts are very funny and others very heartfelt. Likewise with the story, simple and standard stuff but it entertains and it moves with very emotional and beautifully written back-stories for particularly Johnny and Meena. The portrayal of talent shows and the backstage drama, while not much new at all, is affectionate and with much heart instead of being cynical or exploitative. Its message is universal and is as easy to relate to as the best of 'Sing's' characters.

Enjoyed most of the characters, Johnny and Meena are instantly easy to relate to and the portrayal of the underdog with a heart of gold will also appeal greatly. The chemistry between them all is great. The voice acting is terrific, especially slick Matthew McConaughey, emotive Taron Egerton (really surprised me he did) and Tori Kelly and sassy Reese Witherspoon. John C Reilly is funny too.

However, as has been acknowledged, 'Sing' is pretty predictable in places and would have benefited from having less characters and richer depth to more of the back-stories, all interesting but some rushed and not explored enough. Some of the characters were too thinly sketched, and some could have been left out entirely (a shame when most were written very well).

For instance, count me in as somebody who found Mike an unpleasant and annoying character that will go over some children's heads and will make adults question about the message the character is meant to give out. Seth MacFarlane overdoes it in the voice acting too and considering the type of film needed to tone things down, this is a family film not the more adult-oriented 'Family Guy'.

On the whole, while not perfect 'Sing' is enjoyable family fun. 7/10 Bethany Cox