Johnny Express (2014) User Reviews

Dark and occasionally cruel...just the way comedy SHOULD sometimes be!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 16 June 2014]

"Johnny Express" is a sick little animated short directed by Kyungmin Woo. It was written by both Kyungmin Woo and Jisang Kim.

The short begins with what appears to be the universe's worst delivery person in a slovenly rocket in space. It approaches its next destination and lands. The planet is tiny--so tiny that the delivery jerk and walk around it only in seconds. However, as he blunders about the world, he doesn't realize that this seemingly barren tiny world is actually inhabited by microscopic people--and the delivery jerk ends up utterly destroying everything in his path.

This is all very dark and cruel--but the wonderful sense of humor of the filmmakers make this a wonderful comedy. Sure, it's sick and mean--but so funny. You just have to see it to appreciate it. In addition to being quite funny, the character designs and CGI are quite nice. All in all, a great little film and I sure hope we see more from these folks.

Johnny Express. A short film that leads you to a deep reflection

[deborahzrihen · 8/10 · 12 December 2018]

Johnny Express is a 5-minute animated short film directed by Kyungmin Woo in 2014. I would say it is a drama that takes place in a tiny, nice planet whose cute inhabitants have a very well organised life with their buildings, supermarkets, petrol station... The main character, Johnny Express, lands on the planet. He's in charge of delivering some packages and once he finishes he just has to take off and leave. However, because he's so disorganised and such a selfish "person", who's only interested in sleeping most of the time, creates an entirely unpleasant disaster. He seems not to be aware of how dangerous throwing rubbish anywhere is. The script is incredibly original and the story is highly entertaining and heart-warming. It very well portrays the terrible consequences human beings can cause to our planet. The film is well worth seeing and I would recommend it to all age public. It has an absolutely hard message to be learnt: "we must look after the planet if we don't want to be destroyed".

WARNING: it may spoil a bit the scenery of film

Cruel but very funny

[bob the moo · 3 June 2014]

An intergalactic delivery man finds himself with a tiny package to deliver on what appears to be a very small planet – so small it takes him only 5 minutes to circumvent it looking for anyone to deliver to. While his problems are small, on a much smaller scale the residents of the planet have some very big problems.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this film but I had heard it was pretty funny. The plot sees an unsuccessful but uneventful day for our delivery man, but at the same time "Michael Bay" levels of disaster for the residents of the planet he delivers to. The aliens are cute as anything so there is a certain cruelty in the film to see them be destroyed in certain ways, but it is funny enough to cover up for this aspect of it. The quick cuts between chaos and re boredom add to the comedy and it is very nicely constructed for laughs. The animation is also of a very high standard, with very slick and good looking graphics but also plenty of character despite there being no real dialogue to speak of.

A very funny little short film that is well worth checking out.

Politically correct spoiled Yankee's sense of humor

[Lele · 10/10 · 2 September 2015]

From every point of view this short is GREAT: animation, sound, character design and over all screenplay! It deserved Academy Award for animated short, IMHO.

BTW. It's a surprise to discover that US reviewers forgot that they invented the meanest characters in Cartoon's history! Popeye, Beep Beep (the Roadrunner in Wile Coyote), Speedy Gonzales, Bugs Bunny (I hate him). Not to mention the "violence" in Tom and Jerry :)

Not every cartoon's character can be like Horton when he hears a Who. Ordinary people are more like Johnny Express' delivery man and this wonderful short helps us to remind the "awful truth".

My vote 10/10

A big contrast

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 28 July 2016]

"Johnny Express" is a five-minute short film from 2014 and it is a Korean production. The writer and director is Kyungmin Woo, but don't worry, there is no Korean dialogue in here, actually none at all. This was a pretty weird film. It is all bright and colorful has little cute alien creatures and yet it has such dramatic plot twists. Woo certainly had tons of dark humor when he made this one. I just wish he had more talent in terms of writing as the script was not so magnificent gently-speaking. It intends to shock with the ending and some previous scenes, but it's not a positive shock or a shock justified by story-telling, it's just a shock. I did not enjoy the watch and give this one a thumbs-down. Also make sure your kids don't get to see it.