Film Review: That owl movie (as I've mostly been calling it instead of learning the whole title)

[flowrs4ophelia]

I kept thinking as I watched Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole that this is the kind of movie I would have been totally crazy about and obsessed with as a kid, and maybe for that reason more than any other I enjoyed it. Of course, I would have needed to be a kid of just the right age so that I wouldn't have nightmares about it, get completely confused, or understand it too much and be able to see the flaws.

Despite being far from terrible and eye-poppingly beautiful to watch, this movie is going to do badly because it doesn't seem to have a clearly distinguished target audience. You'd think an animal adventure would be great for most children, but there are parts of it that are possibly even darker than the Harry Potter movies ever get. I was reminded of a lot of films that were staples in my regular movie-watching in my childhood like Legend, The Secret of NIMH and The Dark Crystal which were box office failures but still ended up getting the attention of the specific niche of people who eat up that sort of thing. They were just so dark and creepy and serious, and parents must have gone into The Dark Crystal expecting The Muppets and then not understood what the hell it was. Even today you can watch any of those and think, Who exactly did they think they were making this movie for?

But it's not always a bad thing if a film is made seemingly without much concern for those things, if it's clearly the director's work of passion because the fantasy world is so beautifully visually realized in so much detail, even if they get kind of lost in it. Any time I'll take a movie more like that over one that was made with the creators constantly asking themselves things like But is this really going to appeal to the preteen demographic we're trying to aim at because we know what's popular with them right now? Yeah, Guardians could still be a much better movie, even to the hardcore fantasy lovers like me who will be the few it has great appeal for. There are some plot points that I imagine made a lot more sense in the book but had me scratching my head. (There might have been something magical going on in some parts, or else this movie calls for the coining of a "woodland steampunk" genre, and I'm not quite sure which it is...) I have to admit Snyder's use of slow-motion, if you can get past nearly seeing it as a parody of his own style because it will remind you a lot of his previous work, is actually very enjoyable and effective in the way it's used here; somehow what gets old fast as a cheap technique in live-action fight scenes seems absolutely majestic and a little bit new when it's gorgeously animated scenes of badass birds in gleaming moonlit armor. However, unsurprisingly, he does get a little carried away with the battle scenes at the end just enough for you to start feeling the length of the movie. And an hour and forty minutes isn't really that long.

The main problem with this movie is not that it takes itself too seriously. Maybe I just get a little tired of hearing that about fantasy or sci-fi works — Though sometimes it's a perfectly sound criticism (the Dune movie being my favorite extreme example), between you all and me, I think a lot of the time when someone says that it just means they're not the kind of fantasy fan who can get into it enough to take it seriously. But despite what you may have heard from some reviews, this movie does actually have some great moments of humor as well as general adorableness in it; it's just not significantly preoccupied with humor as a rule like all animations are apparently supposed to be. The problem is just that the story it's telling so seriously doesn't totally hold together or even have that much to it. I'm still glad I took a chance despite the divided reviews and saw it at least once, especially on the big screen, before it's gone and everyone above the age of 11 has forgotten about it.

Comments

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I was glad that it actually really picked up about halfway through, because it had so little steam to lose at the beginning. Ezylryb (of course I had to google that) was easily my favorite character.
I like that it not only looked pretty, but was hyper-realistic with the appearance of the animals (like the snake didn't have exaggerated cute eyes, she was just a snake). The only problem with that is I had some trouble distinguishing between the barn owl characters in some parts :/

[flowrs4ophelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it pretty much got a lot better when the poet owl came in, lol. I totally didn't learn any of the characters names...