Director Chris Wedge teases clips of this summer's 'Epic'

The mystery behind Epic's Leaf Men has partially been solved. Yesterday in a movie theatre in Manhattan's Times Square, Ice Age director Chris Wedge previewed clips from the latest Blue Sky Animation feature, Epic. The May 24 release from 20th Century Fox melds comedy with action-adventure in a way that appears to please children (judging by the giggles I heard afterward) and maybe even adults too, though I didn't see enough of the movie in the preview to tell if the story

would coalesce. The premise is that in the forest, there live tiny fairy-like creatures called Leaf Men, which are just one species in a whole range of tiny creatures invisible to the human eye. One scientist (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) has spent his whole life trying to identify these creatures, but it's his college-age daughter (Amanda Seyfried), who he has neglected for most of his years, who's shrunk down to Leaf Men-size and embroiled in a race-against-time that will preserve their existence. That's because the gross, fungi-like Boggans want to destroy the forest and the Leaf Men who protect it.

Epic has such intricately designed characters inhabiting a unique, parallel world, it feels almost literary. At the same time, with so much going on, the clips Wedge showed often followed completely different characters. I didn't even know that the daughter was the main character until Wedge finally said so midway through the talk.

The 3D trailer at the end of the presentation, which will be shown in front of The Croods this Friday, was the only finished, polished piece of animation shown. Wedge described giving reporters "a peek behind the green curtain," and that couldn't be more true. While it was easy to observe what was missing during scenes that skipped frames or used production artwork, the coloring and resolution were off, as was the sound mix, which includes a Danny Elfman music score, which Wedge noted had just been added. The visuals made me feel like I was like watching a later '90s or early aughts CG-animated feature. The type of lighting sparkle and crisp resolution that I've observed in Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon was only there in the trailer.

Watching Epic made me slightly nostalgic for another forest-set animated tale that was popular during my childhood (although not a hit at the box office), FernGully: The Last Rainforest. That film also feature tiny creatures struggling against evil in the forest, and at the time the idea was simply magical. I think it's safe to say that however Epic plays among adults, the world it presents will enchant kids. And did I mention there are two very goofy slugs (voiced by Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd) who do funny things with their eyeballs? Their antics made adults and kids in the audience laugh out loud.