Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole [Movie review]

[Post published by Liviu, on Liviu's [Personal] Blog]


After having experienced the cruel reality of life in The American [Liviu: The American (review)], it was time to dream again. Ok, let's pick an animal, hmm, what about owls? In Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole [official site; IMDB; en.wikipedia; CineMagia (in Romanian)]? Yes, almost a good choice. In 3D? Yes.


The story?

Definitely too straightforward. The bad owls

1. Build a weapon of mass destruction [1] using some crystals or something collected from I-forgot-what (could be what owls throw up at times and then ended up eaten by mice... anyway, it's irrelevant)
   
2. Kidnap baby owls to either train them as soldiers for their army or brainwash them in order to work in collecting those crystals
3. Follow a Nazi-Fascist line of thought / philosophy 
4. They live in a mountainous region, just like the Taliban in Afghanistan or insurgents in Iraq. Of course, it's a coincidence, isn't it? :)

Obviously, once the good-owl Soren and (his future mate maybe?) Gylfie escape from their kidnappers, they reach the Guardians, tell everything and the good-owls-Guardians decide to start the war on terror [1] to free the enslaved owls and establish peace once more.

Good owls win, bad owls loose, while the adult viewer gets bored.


So, it's about some... owls?... in 3D? What's the animation like?

Yes, somewhat & sometimes & to some extent

• funny
• sweet & cute
• daring
• courageous

owls. But not all the time.

In 3D, yes. They got some nice 3D effects. However, the animation does not raise to the Pixar & DreamWorks standards - sorry, Warner Bros but you are in the small league when it comes to animations for the big screen.

Problems:

1. Why did not the owls make their specific sounds? They speak plain English all the time :)) Only when it comes to fighting, they scream like eagles :)) Wtf?
2. Why did not the owls turn their heads to 90-180 degrees like they usually do? Only Digger quickly does it a couple of times and that's it.

Btw, regarding the starting animation based on the Coyote and Road Runner series [en.wikipedia on the series] - if Warner Bros actually thinks that's funny... Well, I'm starting to hate the financial crisis and the low quality it brings! Ok, I had a couple of good laughs, but it was so predictable and just good, but nothing great about it...


Can children watch it? Will they enjoy it?

I'm not sure to what degree it may suit children: too much useless violence, too little attitude & courage & determination. Children might enjoy it; I, as an adult, did not quite enjoy it for example.



Conclusions

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - a good animation, but not great. Warner Bros has yet to learn a lot until they can make great animations. As an adult, I got kind of bored - it felt the movie lacked a clear objective besides the good owls shall win in the war (on terror :p) against the bad owls.

---

[1] Describing it using the War in Iraq terms may sound funny, but these terms fully apply in this animation.