Beno (2016)

Beno is a 2016 American animated comedy-sci-fi film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. it was directed by Charlie Bean, co-directed by Yarrow Cheney, and produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy. The film stars the voices of Jack Black, Tony Hale, Anne Hathaway, Eric Edelstein, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin Hart, and Jason Statham.

The film plot is about a little young alien named Beno (Jack Black) who want's to accepted at the Alien Federation but gets in trouble and chased over to earth to find help and meets and young girl to help him on his journey to warn the other alien agents about the Zorgon Empire coming to invade earth.

Synopsis
A small green and blue alien named Beno (Jack Black) is wanting more in the Galactic Federation rather than being just an employ for the force. When Beno accidently gives a message to the whole galaxy and the other aliens are in fear of the message being sent to their feared enemy the Anti Dictator Zai-Gorg the Leader of the Zorgons, he get's chase away by the other aliens and stranded on earth. There he meets a young strange and bizarre girl by the name Cora Miller (Hayley LeBlanc) that's in love with anything space and alien related and dreams of going into the unknown of astronomy. In the chaos in Galactic Federation the chief of the force Mrs. Madam Lucy (Michelle Monaghan) assigns 4 aliens to bring and arrest their own close friend from earth while to delete the message from the Zorgons. Can Beno and Tori be able to stop the Zorgons form invading earth.



Plot
The film begins with a huge ship passing throw a destroyed planet which they don't know the cause and just move pass and cuts to alien getting let to huge event in the space alien community and head to a huge council meeting where all alien's are gathered to this huge meeting including the head of the party named Madam Lucy the Head Council (Michelle Monaghan) the head of the federation gathering all the aliens on board with her right hand soldier Commander General Shark Eye (Jason Statham) and Lucy gathered this whole council to interrogate the victim for Illegal Genetic Experiment Creation (Rule State 501) and it turns out to be the star of the film himself Beno "The Last Jairo (Jack Black) and is caught for his intentions and tries to talk his way out of it and says it was all to show the community his talents and wants to show them he is made of an intelligent mind set and want to a alien government agent as well and not be simple worker like every simple alien in the force, and starts showing off his pet abomination named Mar Mar that everyone is freaked out by and General Shark Eye is commanding the monstrosity to destroyed at once, Madam Lucy is reasonable and tries to talk out with Beno's pet and say's to it if there is something inside it that is good and Mar Mar gets up coughs up and says to everyone a unknown language that everyone gets offended by and Shark Eye commands the guards to kick Beno out and decides to send the creature Mar Mar to a alien creation deception room, with Beno getting kicked out it cut's to a cool film intro with a 50's style comic book animation and giving a preview of half of the movie.

Cast

 * Jack Black as Beno
 * Hayley LeBlanc as Tori Miller
 * Tony Hale as Fonzo
 * Anne Hathaway as Phoebe
 * Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Felix
 * Eric Edelstein as Carlos
 * Kevin Hart as Ralphie (R-Money)
 * Michelle Monaghan as Madam Lucy (Head Council)
 * Jason Statham as General Shark Eye
 * Rainn Wilson as Dr. Daxter Nicklejar (Nickname Nickster)
 * Thurop Van Orman as Chives Blobert (General Assistant 1)
 * Kevin McDonald as Apollo Steves (General Assistant 2)
 * Rosa Blasi as Sofie Miller (Cora's Mother)
 * William Levy as David Dietz (Cora's Step Father)
 * Javier Bardem as Harold (Cora's Ballet Teacher)
 * Laura Marano as Angelina Dietz (Cora's Older Step Sister)
 * Julia Butters as Missy Dietz (Cora's Little Step Sister)
 * Dean Scott Vazquez as Jacob Dietz (Cora's Little Step Brother)
 * TBA as Professor Ian Hawkeye (Secret Agent Scientist)
 * TBA as Zai-Gorg (Anti Zorgon Dictator)
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Mar Mar (Beno's Pet)

Production & Release
Beno was announced on August 21, 2012 and was set to be release on December 19, 2014. However, on September 20, 2013, the release date was delayed until July 8, 2016.

Renaud first became involved with the project in 2012, while he was still working on Despicable Me 2. At that time, Illumination's CEO Chris Meledandri pitched him an idea on a film about an alien getting sent to earth from an alien race. Although Renaud found the premise interesting, he and his team did not know what form the story would take, with them at one point considering making it a murder mystery, before deciding to make something "that was a bit more relatable". Additional characters were created by author Simon Rich while main character design and production design is provided by Eric Guillon.

The team used Jean-Jacques Sempé as an influence in designing the environment and attention was specifically paid to keep the designs "very vertically oriented". In keeping with the tradition of old WB cartoons,. The home of the "star wars vibe" was created to "hint at the darker side" of the universe" without, hopefully, getting too heavy", as well as to explore "this whole mythology in galaxy of the world that's unseen", while still maintaining the star wars theme. The animation was created entirely in France by Illumination Mac Guff.

During the end credits Fonzo, Felix, Carlos, and Phoebe start auditioning for their own separate spin off and end up ruining the whole set.

The first trailer for international release was uploaded on Illumination Entertainment's YouTube channel on June 17, 2015. This was followed by a Christmas-themed festive special for the winter season which was uploaded on November 25, 2015 and an Easter-themed special on March 21, 2016. The behind-the scenes featurette involved the production staff and crew of Beno discussing the premise of the film and their experience of its production phase. The second trailer was uploaded onto Illumination's YouTube channel on January 28, 2016 and the third trailer on April 11, 2016. The theatrical release of the film is accompanied by an animated mini-movie based on the Despicable Me universe and titled Mower Minions. The film will receive a home video release in December 6, 2016 after the summer theatrical-exclusive run, with the other two mini-movies, Phoebe & Carlos Television.

Trivia

 * Jack Black wanted to uses a specific voice for Beno instead of using his normal voice but the studio said to just use his regular voice to make the performance feel easier and make it much more of a loaner Beno is to everyone.
 * Beno was the first animated original film Illumination made beside Despicable Me.
 * Most of the film was inspired by films like E.T, the 2009 film Monsters vs Alien's
 * Michelle Monaghan always wanted to do voice over for an animation film and had a lot fun with her role in Beno.
 * Both Beno (2016) and Sing (2016) were both in production at the same time.

Soundtrack
On November 20, 2015, John Williams was revealed to be composing the film's score. He was told to give the film a "star wars" ascetic theme to the soundtrack and have Williams compose the climax a star trek theme to give the film a much more suspenseful third act.

The soundtrack for the movie was composed by John Williams who also composed several other films including the Home Alone films, the Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones films and even E.T.

Reception
Beno received mostly positive reviews. The critical review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie it a 74]]84%, saying, "Fast-paced, funny, and blessed with a talented voice cast, <Beno offers a beautifully animated, cheerfully undemanding Sci-Fi family-friendly diversion." It grossed $875.5 million worldwide and was named the highest-scoring animated film of 2016.

Sequel
Main article for: Beno 2

A sequel, with director returning Charlie Bean, producers Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, and writer Brian Lynch returning and the return of the original cast is scheduled to be released on August 7, 2021.