Saturday, October 2, 2010

Owl There is to Know: Reviewing Legend of the Guardians

The other day, I did something with my family that I said I wasn’t going to do. I went to see Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga’Hoole. The constant trailers for this film had me dreading this movie. There were several reasons I feared my sons’ insistence on seeing this one.

I can handle talking animals. Animated features starring furry creatures have never been a problem for me from the time I was watching Watership Down as a kid. Animals with Australian accents are another matter. While it’s not the accent itself that annoys me, its combination with vocalizing owls makes them seem to take themselves more seriously. I begin to dislike them and see them as pretentious. Do those owls really think they’re better than me?

I attend movies in order to escape. I have no issues with suspending reality enough to believe that scientists developed a computer intelligent enough to enable travel to Jupiter, people with super human abilities roam the Earth or long ago and far away there existed an entire galaxy full of alien life that drove star cruisers and fought for their freedom against an evil empire. For some reason, however, I had a major problem accepting that beaks could pronounce the complex phonetic sounds of human language. Maybe if the CGI hadn’t been so realistic, it would have made my suspension of reality more liberal.

Finally, this movie came from the makers of Happy Feet. From the preach-iness to the meandering, disjointed story to the soft, always surprised and earnest voice of Elijah Wood, Happy Feet assaulted my brain with an evil triangle of theatrical annoyance. Seeing anything else made by the same people had me instantly terrified.

All this said, Legend of the Guardians was actually pretty good.

There wasn’t anything ground breaking about the story. There are epic forces of good and evil that are known to generations only as stories. Soon, a young, brave child discovers the legends are real and that he will play an unsuspected role in the triumph of one side over the other. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Narnia…with owls.

But, again, it was pretty good. The characters in it were cliché, but endearing enough to avoid becoming Jar-Jar-esque. The animation was great. The story was predictable, but steady and able to be followed by any age group. There were even some good action scenes, including Braveheart-like battle clashes.

For those wanting to take younger viewers, be aware that there was a lot of fighting in the movie and several characters died as a result of it. However, the makers of the film did a good job of using slow-motion and camera angles to keep the significant blows out of sight. Whether off camera or behind the body of an owl or trunk of a tree, you didn’t actually witness any death strikes but you still knew exactly what happened.

In the end, a good time was had by all. I didn’t exactly stand up and cheer at the end, but I didn’t pray for a movie theater butter induced heart attack in the middle of the screening to end the pain like I did during the second Alvin and the Chipmunks movie either. Plus, there was a definite moral to the story that I not only agreed with, but was pertinent to my two sons’ lives.

I’m not sure if you were expecting a thumbs up or thumbs down here. I know this isn’t exactly a rave review. I will tell you this much. Did I enjoy the movie? Yes. Did I enjoy it enough that I would have gone to see it without my kids? No.

Buy your tickets accordingly.

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