Heart-warming return for the ‘Peanuts’ gang

CHARLIE BROWN, his precocious beagle Snoopy and their adorable friends are back—and, while the intersecting tales they tell in Steve Martino’s heart-warming “Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie” are simple, they dispense invaluable lessons about the confounding but character-forming challenges we constantly hurdle in life—and the power of perception.

Chuck (voiced by Noah Schnapp) is feeling more inadequate than usual: He can’t work up the nerve to talk to the Little Red-Haired Girl (Francesca Capaldi) he likes in school—he has even lost the ability to fly his kite!

To improve his odds with the new girl on the Peanuts block, he intends to ace a 1,000-word book report about Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”—and joins a talent show to impress her with his magic skills!

Things don’t seem to go Chuck’s way, however—all he manages to “accomplish” is embarrass himself in front of his thumb-sucking best friend Linus, smart-alecky Lucy, Peppermint Patty, the piano-playing Schroeder, his younger sister Sally and Snoopy’s furry pal Woodstock!

Meanwhile, Snoopy imagines himself as an adventurous pilot who must save poodle Fifi, his pink-furred muse, from the sinister machinations of the Red Baron!

It doesn’t take long for Chuck and Snoopy to realize that the ability to fly a kite isn’t always more important than the courage to continue trying to fly it!