The makers of Ice Age and Rio are giving us another animated wonder. It’s called Epic and I can already tell that the CGI will live up to its title. No promises yet as to whether or not the plot will be a hit or a miss. The trailer doesn’t go into much detail — it’s basically just a beautiful wordless montage set to music. Epic won’t hit theaters until May of next year, giving us plenty of time to figure out more. Reel Movie Nation will make sure you stay up-to-date on production details. Until then, take a peak at what we know so far:

Premise

The movie’s based on William Joyce’s delightfully titled children’s book, “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.” If the author’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he also wrote “The Guardians of Childhood,” the same book Rise of the Guardians will be based off of (learn more about that one here). Epic‘s premise is a bit like Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz. A girl finds herself lost in a fairytale complete with talking animals and other mythical creatures. She soon learns that these creatures are having a conflict between good and evil and they need her help. We only get a good look at the girl at the end of the trailer, so it looks like the movie’s focus will be on the forest and the good vs. evil battle more than her personal tale. Happily, that means we get to learn more about this magical land and its inhabitants. Which brings me to my next point:

Animation

It’s great when animated films include teensy details. Little things like the way the sun glints off the waterfall and the shadow patterns on the leaves really get me excited about movies like this. Also I’m a huge sucker for any sort of things-aren’t-as-they-seem world and this promises lots of surprises. Dandelions are really beautiful tiny women with poofy grey hair?  I love it!

Everything from the saddled hummingbirds to the leafy soldiers promise a visually charming film. Albeit, the talking slugs are a little strange, but this is from the creators of Ice Age — a dash of silliness is expected.

Cast

In the trailer, the only characters we hear talk are the girl and a slug, so it’s too early to make judgements about how well everyone’s going to be voiced. However, there’s some pretty big names behind all of these tiny beings, including Beyonce Knowles, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Knoxville and Steven Tyler. All in all, it looks pretty promising.  What do you guys think?

Epic is directed by Chris Wedge, produced by Lori Forte and Jerry Davis and is scheduled to be released May 24, 2013.

‘Epic’ Movie Trailer