Netflix have been making a concerted effort to increase the amount of in-house animated movies coming to the library, something that’s worked out pretty well over the last month based on the success of The Mitchells vs. the Machines, which did admittedly cost the streaming service $110 million to acquire from Sony. However, the platform has never dealt with any 2D effort quite as bonkers as America: The Motion Picture.
In the broadest strokes, it could be described as the bastard animated love child of Mel Gibson’s The Patriot, The Avengers and The Expendables, which is fitting when Dave Callaham is the credited writer, with the scribe responsible for penning the first outing for Sylvester Stallone’s aging band of action heroes.
An insane spin on the American Revolution, Channing Tatum voices a foul-mouthed and chainsaw-wielding George Washington, who assembles a crack team of the nation’s heroes to battle the nefarious forces of Simon Pegg’s King James and Andy Samberg’s Benedict Arnold. The crew contains the hard-drinking Sam Adams, famed scientist Thomas Edison, Paul Revere and Geronimo, while Abraham Lincoln will of course appear as well, as played by Will Forte.
The ensemble includes Judy Greer, Bobby Moynihan, Olivia Munn, Jason Mantzoukas and more, while Archer executive producer Matt Thompson will make his feature directorial debut, with Tatum also producing alongside Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who are no strangers to irreverent animation given their prior credits on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The LEGO Movie and The Mitchells vs. the Machines.
In short, America: The Motion Picture is shaping up to be an absolute blast, and there’s not long left until the revisionist animation explodes onto Netflix on June 30th.