Think owls aren’t cool? This one’s a hoot!

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/09/2010 (5519 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prior to being talked into seeing an early screening of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, my daughter protested she’d rather not. Asked why she wasn’t interested, she expressed the sentiment that she simply didn’t want to see a movie about owls.

Owls, she explained, are sidekicks.

You see her point. Harry Potter relies on his owl Hedwig basically as a magical Blackberry, sending and receiving messages. Merlin in The Sword in the Stone had Archimedes expressing his fusty wisdom: “If man were meant to fly, he’d have wings.” Winnie the Pooh probably got more useful info from his pal Owl.

But are any of them cut out to be star material? No.

Hence, director Zack Snyder has his work cut out for him with this lavish animated 3D feature with an all-owl cast. Adapted from the first three novels of three books of the 15-volume Ga’Hoole series by children’s author Kathryn Lasky, Legend of the Guardians place a nice young barn owl named Soren (voiced with a bit too much gushy sincerity by Jim Sturgess) and his aggressive brother Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) in the clutches of a gang of owl fascists.

This organization of avian thugs, who refer to themselves as “The Pure,” are ruled by the icy white snowy owl Nyra (Helen Mirren) who decrees all owl kidnappees be sorted into slaves and soldiers. Soren, raised on stories of the legendary “Guardians”, escapes his fate as slave and seeks out the Guardians while Kludd, praised for his qualities of innate viciousness, stays on as a soldier for The Pure.

During his harrowing flight, Soren is joined by a ragtag band of fellows including a lute-twanging poet-warrior (Anthony LaPaglia), a half-crazed eccentric called Digger (David Wenham), only to discover the stories of his truncated youth were all too true.

Snyder seems an odd choice to direct this movie, given that he has made something of a specialty out of ultra-violent adult fare, including 300 and Watchmen. On the other hand, if Snyder does anything well, it is creating indelible images from the chaos of combat, a quality that comes in handy here, given that most of the combatants are owls.

They’re pretty darn cool here, with state-of-the-art animation being brought to bear to give the cast of characters personality, fighting style and sheer visual grandeur.

That said, Legends of the Guardians is somewhat lacking story-wise. It’s birds of a feather with just about every other fantasy epic made in the last decade wherein a young hero challenges a rising tide of evil with a ragtag band of rebels, etcetera and so forth.

I’m assuming Soren will distinguish himself as “The Chosen One” if they ever make a sequel.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

n Featuring the voices of Jim Sturgess and Helen Mirren

n Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne.

n PG

HHH1/2 out of HHHHH

 

Other Voices

Excerpts from reviews of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.

 

Classy cast and stunning visuals compensate for a pedestrian script.

— Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter

In an age of “let’s all get along” pabulum, there’s much to like in a cartoon not afraid to show its talons.

— Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

 

Snyder has crafted the rare 3-D eyegasm worth the premium ticket price.

— Jeff Labrecque, Entertainment Weekly

Despite the cockamamie premise, the filmmaking by Zack Snyder… is the best use of 3-D animation since Avatar.

— Tom Meek, Boston Phoenix

 

 

 

Compiled by Shane Minkin