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Virtual Journey is a 2009 American 3D computer-animated science fiction adventure comedy film produced by Paramount Animation for Paramount Pictures. It is the 57th feature film produced by the studio. It was directed by Mike Moon (in his directorial debut) from a screenplay by Nicholas Stoller and John Hamburg, and stars the voices of Patton Oswalt, Katie Crown, Josh Gad, David Spade, Kristen Bell, Ben Schwartz, Idina Menzel, and Patrick Stewart. The film follows a young gamer named Kasey, who suddenly stumbles upon an online universe deep inside the realms of the magic arcade cabinet. In the meantime, Kasey later joined Karissa to stop an evil person who plans to corrupt the video game universe.
Virtual Journey was the first Paramount animated film to be presented in 3D. The film premiered in Toronto on July 12, 2009 and was theatrically released in the United States on July 31, 2009 by Paramount Pictures, to critical acclaim and earned $643.5 million worldwide on a budget of $92 million. The film's success helped spawn an expanded franchise, with three sequels — Virtual Journey: Level Two, Virtual Journey: Next Dimensions and Virtual Journey: Game Changer — and two television series.
Plot[]
Kasey Jones is a 18-year-old gamer living with his mother Ruby. After his father died, he began to profess his love for video games when he was just 6 years old. 12 years later, after being inspired by games, he planned to become video game designer as he created his own video game Virtual Quest. With the game almost complete, Kasey designs the main character of the game, Karissa June, a young woman who tried to save the virtual world in the game's story. After being tired of creating his own game, he decided to "take a break" from making video games. When Kasey was about to go on for the walk, he actually met a mysterious person who has been hiding in the alley, as she showed him an old game arcade cabinet titled "Virtual World". Later that night, Kasey discover the arcade machine at the abandoned arcade and then he tried that machine out. Kasey pushes the start button on the machine, then nothing happens at first as Kasey decided to give up, but all of a sudden, the arcade starts to have a blinding white flash that begins to suck up random things in the arcade building. Kasey try to escape, but he fail and get sucked into the arcade cabinet.
Kasey discovers a video game/virtual reality world deep inside the realms of the arcade cabinet, and he meet a robot named G.A.M.E., who is known for working on video games. However, they have been attacked by a party of Virus Robot, which are Master V's minions. The duo escape and G.A.M.E. explains that Master V is planning to wipe out and erase the entire video game universe with the power of the Virtual Crystal. As he goes to tell everybody, Kasey saw another mysterious person who's secretly hiding to sneak out and goes on the quest. As he tried to figure out who she is, Kasey and G.A.M.E. get captured by Master V, who teleported them to his lair, where his minions tried to kill them with a laser. But they gets saved by the same mysterious person, who happens to be appears as Karissa, who tried to help them escaped while V's robot minions chasing them. The trio succeed, Karissa later invites Kasey to her hideout where they fixed G.A.M.E. up after he been hit by a laser. While fixing G.A.M.E., Karissa tells the duo how she become a helper after Master V invaded her home and kidnapped her mom and sister when she was young. However, after they fixed G.A.M.E., they get attacked by V's robot minions again. They manage to escape using one of her flying hoverboard. As hoverboard explodes, they heads on their journey.
Master V, disgruntled that his evil robot has failed to captured Kasey and Karissa, hires a mean-spirited person named Minka to chase them down and kill them. Meanwhile, during their journey, they accidentally enter the game titled RoboDino Land, where they get chased by a pack of robot dinosaurs, and then they bump into a multicolored 8-bit-alike shape-shifting creature named Bitly, who agrees to help. After they escaped from robot dinosaurs, they later head to an adventure video game titled The Legend of Nature, where Nyasia is in, and later on, they are attacked by Virus Robots again, chasing them through the forest, but are fended off by a shockwave bomb which Karissa threw at the robots. They then ended up in a video games city, where they get greeted by Quickly, a bird-like creature who led them to the league of video games. After a not so successful speech sent by Kasey, the leader Layton agrees to forge an alliance with the gang if Kasey defeats Quickly and the three challengers, Erick, Loop and Slash, in a fight. Despite their immense strength, Kasey successfully defeats him using a FlameSuit, winning not only the battle but also securing a powerful alliance of video games heroes.
Kasey, Karissa, G.A.M.E., Bitly, Nyasia, Quickly and the rest of video games heroes use go-karts to race back to Virtual World, but as they approached a dangerous curve in the road, they were suddenly ambushed by Virus Robots. When Minka unleashed a kamikaze strike to destroy a vital part of the road, Kasey, Karissa, Bitly, and Quickly plummet to the ocean as the video games heroes are captured. However, the gang were survived as they been rescued by King Forward, who used to be Loop's arch-enemy, and they go to the base where they talk about a plan to stop Master V. With some messed up plans, Kasey comes up with a good plan as they sneak in Master V's fort. Nyasia and G.A.M.E. tried to return Virtual World, but they were captured by Minka and take them to Master V's fort.
Kasey comes up with a new plan that would finally take the crystals and save the video game world. That plan kind of worked at first, but Minka kidnaps Kasey's friends first, before capturing Kasey last as she reveals herself as the mysterious person that he met and sent him into Virtual World. As Kasey was about to lose hope, Karissa sets herself, her friends and the video game heroes free and tried to confront Kasey to don't give up, but he disagrees and started to walk away while planning to find himself home, leaving her heartbroken. Minka has a serious change of heart and helps the heroes. After a speech, Kasey decides to go back to Virtual World to finally stop Master once and for all.
Kasey, Karissa, G.A.M.E., Bitly, Nyasia, Quickly and the rest of the video game characters fight Master V and his evil robots. Kasey finds Master V in his lair, just about to break the crystals and started to fight him. As Master V was finally going to kill Kasey after fighting him off, Karissa knocks V with one of his own weapons and throws him at the self-destruct button, with a huge explosion destroying Master V's lair. The townspeople of Virtual World believe Kasey and Karissa is dead, but it turns out that they survived the explosion. Master V tried to destroy them, but Karissa repairs the crystals and uses it to make Master V and his evil robots to disintegrate into digital pixel dust, causing them to disappear. Kasey embraces the responsibilities of his new life with him and his friends now being hailed as heroes, and he and Karissa start dating each other. During the celebration, a sadistic mastermind decides to wreck havoc, and Kasey, Karissa and their friends agree to stop him, as this was only the beginning for them.
Voice cast[]
- Patton Oswalt as Kasey Jones, a 18-year-old video game designer who is a really good video game player, and wants to save Virtual World.
- Katie Crown as Karissa June, a 17-year-old teenage girl who aids Kasey in saving Virtual World, becoming his best friend (girlfriend later).
- Josh Gad as G.A.M.E., a robot who befriends Kasey and Karissa.
- Patrick Stewart as Master V, the corrupt evil man who plans to destroy Virtual World and the entire video game.
- David Spade as Bitly, a multicolored 8-bit-alike shape-shifting creature who is one of Kasey and Karissa's friends.
- Kristen Bell as Nyasia, a warrior princess who is one of Kasey and Karissa's friends.
- Ben Schwartz as Quickly, a speedy bird-like creature who is one of Kasey and Karissa's friends.
- Idina Menzel as Minka, a mean-spirited person who chases down the heroes and the secondary antagonist
More coming soon!
Cameo casts[]
Coming soon!
Additional voices[]
Coming soon!
Production[]
Development[]
The concept of an animated film based on a story about a teenager getting magically transported into the world of video games originated from Paramount Animation supervising animator Dallas Sharp during the production of Paramount Pictures' 2004 animated film Twin, Duo, and Two. At the time, Paramount encouraged everyone at its feature animation division to come up with ideas for more computer-animated features. Sharp, Mike Moon and Nicholas Stoller developed Sharp's concept into a story before pitching it to Paramount. Paramount officially announced the film, under the working title of Pixel World, on August 1, 2003. John Hamburg was contracted to write the script for the film with Stoller. In May 2005, Paramount announced that the film was expected to see a 2008 release.
Patton Oswalt and Katie Crown were cast as Kasey Jones and Karissa June in July 2006.
Music[]
The score for Virtual Journey was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh. The album was released on June 10, 2009, by Varèse Sarabande.
Release[]
Virtual Journey premiered in Toronto, Ontario on July 12, 2009 and was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on July 31, 2009. The film was rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America for mild violence, rude humor and some language.
Marketing[]
- The film's teaser trailer was released on June 6, 2008, and was shown before Kung Fu Panda, Meet Dave, Space Chimps, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Zone, and Igor.
- The first theatrical trailer was released on October 3, 2008, and was shown before Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Bolt, Magic, and The Tale of Despereaux.
- The second theatrical trailer was released on January 16, 2009, and was shown before Hotel for Dogs, Coraline,The Pink Panther 2, Spiritual Kingdom, Monsters vs. Aliens, The Princess Sisters, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, P.O.L.I.C.E. Squad, Adyora Focus: The Rise of Darkness, Up, Imagine That, The Dragon and the Magic Pyramid, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and G-Force.
- TV spots began to air between June and July 2009.
Video game[]
- Main article: Virtual Journey (video game)
A video game based on the film was released on May 22, 2009 on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Nintendo DS.
Home media[]
Virtual Journey was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 17, 2009. Both releases include a short film titled Virtual Quest. A 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray version was released on April 11, 2017. On March 4, 2021, the film, along with its sequels and other Paramount Animation films, become available Paramount+.
Reception[]
Box office[]
Virtual Journey opened theatrically in the United States on July 31, 2009 by Paramount Pictures. The film grossed $289.1 million in the United States and Canada and $354.4 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $643.5 million against its production budget of $92 million. The film became the eighth-highest grossing film of 2009 behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and became the third-highest grossing animated film of 2009, behind Up.
United States and Canada[]
The film was screened on 3,196 theatres in the United States and Canada on July 31, 2009 alongside Funny People and Aliens in the Attic, earning $4.6 million in Thursday night previews. Estimated projections were $15-25 million. The film went on to gross $38.1 million in its first opening weekend, finishing first on the domestic box office charts. The film then made $46.7 million in its opening week, and later made $24.8 million in its second opening weekend, grossing between expectations of $23-30 million.
More coming soon!
Other territories[]
Coming soon!
Critical response[]
Based on 167 professional critic reviews, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of those reviews were positive, with an average rating of 7.85/10. On the website, the critics' consensus reads, "It takes a lot of knowledge to kick it into overdrive, but Virtual Journey's story works to keep the momentum going with its star-studded voice cast, its beautiful animation and scenery, and its electronic-powered music." Using a weighted average calculator, Metacritic assigned the film a score of 75 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore assigned the film a rare average grade "A+" on its scale of A+ to F.
Sequels[]
- Main articles: Virtual Journey: Level Two, Virtual Journey: Next Dimensions and Virtual Journey: Game Changer
Television series[]
- Main articles: Virtual Journey: The Series and Virtual Journey: Dimensional Mayhem