Between penguins and toucans and chickens and many others of the avian persuasion, the past few years have brought with it a flock…or gaggle…or colony of animated movies focused around those wonderful creatures that shit on our cars, put holes in our siding, and will best be narrated by Morgan Freeman. Because they had yet to be represented (probably because they’re really fucking boring when you get right down to it), Legend of the Guardians decided it would be wise to focus their attention on those snooty, nocturnal fuckheads, the owls.
Now, say what you will about owls: they’re distinguished, composed, wise beyond their years, and they do know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop. Now compare that to The Owls of Ga’hoole: their…their owls. They have big heads that look badass in shiny helmets but other than that they’re pretty much flat characters that could have been replaced with pigeons or…well shit, pigeons actually would have been pretty interesting.
The Owls of Ga’hoole wants to be a crafty, deep, epic plot that isn’t afraid to be dark and cruel and rehash the glory days of Don Bluth when parents weren’t afraid to have their kids watch movies where death actually felt like death instead of the euphemistic “early retirement” that it’s become. For a while, I was actually excited to see this story develop because it had some grit and the evilness actually had some weight to it. Stealing children, stripping away their identities, and forcing them to become slave miners or soldiers can definitely steer down the path of a dangerous TV-14 plotline, but too many times did this movie take a gigantic leap backward, tell itself “oh wait, there’s children in the audience,” and get itself distracted with the hokey sideshow of TV-Y.
When an evil “pure” owl organization steals him and his friends and takes them to HQ to make them slaves, Soren (Jim Sturgess) manages to escape and begins a quest to find the legendary Owls of Ga’hoole because they are the only other owls in existence that know how to fight and perhaps can morph and turn into a giant Megazord, I don’t know, I didn’t watch the special features. Lost in an endless sea with his new pal Gylfie (Emily Barclay), the two cross paths with every creature that knows the details of the legend, which apparently is EVERY creature, find the Owls of Ga’hoole and convince them to be all badass and take down the Owl army bent on taking over the world to the tune of Owl City (the jackass recording artist, which someone apparently thought was funny).
I do have to give credit to the animation, which was absolutely beautiful and eloquently detailed. Now, the direction was for shit, which is common in 3D animated features because when you give someone that much free reign, they don’t really know how to be creative with it. Animated filmmakers need to understand that the best, most powerful shots were the ones that had to get creative because of the limitations of physical space and gravity; panning out to the massive landscapes and speeding across them because your camera knows no bounds may make for beautiful animation, but not beautiful cinema. Please acknowledge this. The Owls of Ga’hoole seemed to be too proud of its technical accomplishment that the moments that were meant to mean something powerful didn’t because there were too many other shiny things to focus on. It’s the same thing that plagued Speed Racer over and over again. That and The Wachowski Brothers are the M. Night Shyamalans of Action/Adventure but because the Matrix was so good, nobody has the heart to tell them.
Anyway, there was plenty to enjoy about this movie but it just didn’t know what target audience it wanted to cater to and unlike Disney movies that are expertly crafted to cater to all of them, it just proved to be too much of a challenge for Ga’hoole. Its story wasn’t bad…it just never got really good. The characters were fun, but never got any depth. The animation was beautiful, but was never properly respected. A lot of this is me being a picky asshole, but yeah, hopefully ya’ll figured that out already. Regardless, as I tend to show leniency towards kids movies because if they tried to make an amazing experience for ME they would struggle making it an amazing experience for THEM, I give Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole a generous 7 dustbusters out of 10.
Man, I really wanted to like this one more than I did. One thing I'll say for it, it looks fucking amazing on Blu-ray! It just couldn't decided if it wanted to be a fable or an adventure, or if it wanted to be kid-friendly with cute owls or scare the shit out of 'em with very dark themes (if I was a kid I wouldn't be able to sleep after seeing it, god forbid I fall out of my bed, be kidnapped and moon-blinded, then put to slave labor). I didn't care about the characters and personally I felt that the voice talent was completely lackluster and...well, boring.
ReplyDeleteSo...yeah. Been there, done that, don't need to do it again.