Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Use the Gizzard, Luke"
or
"Not So Much 'Hoo' as 'What' and 'Why'"

I loves me my fantasy films. You give me a good fantasy film, and I'm back to being 5 years old, giddy with the possibilities of a world-view that has no knowledge of mortgages, property tax, paralyzing self-doubt, and Glenn Beck.* Innocence makes a comeback, the world seems simpler, and it gives us something to aspire to besides not hitting the "Snooze" alarm in the morning. I miss those pre-cynical days.

Which is why a lot of the current crop of kids' flicks leaves me cold. Harry Potter used to be fun, but they've gotten increasingly dark and creepy, and they're going to end with an inevitability that's telegraphed and a bit morose (and I wouldn't be surprised if the last one were just a black screen). I mean, c'mon, the kid has an invisibility cloak and flies a broomstick for crying out loud, what's he got to be depressed about? The Star Wars films were fun before Darth Freud came waltzing in, then they careened into the side of the Death Star trench—impressively, one must say, but they weren't too much fun trying to present their civics lessons.

One goes into these things with that same innocence. Tell me a story. Gladden my eyes. Charm me. Seduce me. Make me not think about the $10 admission and the two hours I'm wasting of my too-short life. Give me something new and let me walk out with a spring in my step and a song in my heart, and maybe...maybe...a fresh, better way of looking at the world. We don't have to be friends, just don't make me regret the time I spent with you. I'm easy. I came to buy.

So, an animated owl movie sounds like just the ticket. I like owls, even though they're predators. They impress me, and I've enjoyed a couple of them as neighbors. But, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole (they needed the post-colon part, as the title couldn't be more generic) left me wanting to repeal the Endangered Species Act. Yeah, I know, the thing's popular with kids, but I remember kids used to like Clutch Cargo, which was the lowest form of animation there was. 

The story is Template No.2 in the Fantasy genre—ostracized something-or-other must prove its worth against big, bad oppressors, while putting aside its childhood loyalties in some small way. But I couldn't help but think the authors just did a cut-and-paste job putting owls into Star Wars (yes, they really DO say "Use the gizzard" as a euphemism for instinct). The complete lack of anything original in the plot can sometimes be overcome by clever film-makers with style.  Zack Snyder, as successful as he can be adapting other media—specifically graphic media—to a cinematic form, seems to be up a tree when making the leap from prose to image. 

I've often mentioned that graphic novels are movie storyboards with better writing, and it would appear that is how Snyder managed to make good movies out of 300 and Watchmen. LOTG:TOOG is a mess. It's an unmemorable mess, that flies out of the mind as if it was searching for a more palatable meal—something with meat and gristle—the only memorable thing about it being its own lack of anything that sticks. The owls look like sock-puppets with beaks, devoid of distinguishing characteristics that allow you to follow their progress in the story. The flying scenes are choreographed with the intention to disorient, rather than create empathy or epiphany. The only thing I took note of were the impressive background vistas the critters inhabited, but it is the faintest of praise to say that the best thing about the movie was the stuff you'd see in the rear-view mirror. This film is totally devoid of charm, and even, coherence.

Now, I'm sure there will be some parent out there who'll read this and immediately take umbrage ("My child LOVED this movie!!"**) and want to go on the attack, as if I was writing this with their precious issue particularly in mind.  For all you potentially psychotic parents, I don't question your child's taste (although I'd be willing to bet they were as fidgety as the kids I saw it with—and as I was—and I'd also wager that if they liked it, it was because they were familiar with the source material, and would be happy if there were a Ga'hoole breakfast cereal consisting of twigs and feathers), but this is a BAD movie. Really bad. 

A reasonable child can like bad stuff (I loved the TV-show "Supercar" as a kid—which was a marionette show about a flying car, and I never questioned why all the cars were convertibles—so I speak from experience), but this is cotton candy movie-making, spun to give an ephemeral surge of interest, but with zero nutritional value (perhaps the calories should be posted in the End-Credits, I didn't stay to find out). When one considers how much time and money has been spent digitizing (one hesitates using the word "creating") this exercise, you begin to fantasize staking yourself out in a field, wearing a mouse-suit ("Come and get me, owls, you can't do anything worse than you already have!!). Better to salve your inner child with a daily dose of Babe, or Charlotte's Web.

If your child does drag you to this mess, I would suggest texting your friends throughout the entire movie...or even watching another movie.

I can't help but think that Ga'Hoole is a cynical writer's malaprop of "Go to Hell."

* The problem with re-posting old reviews is that there are references the reader might not have any clue about—like Glenn Beck who used to be somebody. Billy Wilder ran the same danger when he put in topical references into his movies. Unless he was very careful, 50 years on people wouldn't know what he was talking about, cultural-reference-wise.

** I still remember the time some parent castigated me for hating Speed Racer.  The movie sucked...and it's a deeply cynical thing to show a child.  I'm unremorseful in my assessment.  (2021 Update: I'll be re-posting reviews of Speed Racer and Watchmen next week).

300

Written at the time of the film's release...

"This won't be over quickly. You will not enjoy this" 

Two characters say this in 300, but it might as well have been me when I walked into the theater. I'm not a fan of Frank Miller, the comic-book artist-turned-writer who breathed new life into Marvel's "Daredevil" and DC's "Batman." I enjoyed his work on those, but around the time of his "Sin City" output, I began to think of his work as campily overblown and corrupt. When he ran out of ideas, he'd have one of his characters cut off a limb and do something that defied the laws of physics and that would serve as plot advancement. 

So, upon seeing the extremely faithful film adaptation of his "Sin City" graphic novels years ago, I just hung my head and thought that was the end of Miller doing anything good ever again. His hack-work had become too successful. A second Batman "Dark Knight" series was a sporadically illustrated mess, and his current work on an "All-Star" version of the character has been embarrassing. His scripts for the "Robocop" series were terrible. His co-directorial debut with Sin City was a frame by frame recreation of his original illustrations, and in those, there was power, no matter how thick-headed the concept or eye-rolling the dialogue that accompanied them.* 

It did point out, however, why films are one thing and graphic story-telling is another. Comics have the luxury of leaping from high-point to high-point. They suspend time to make way for mouthfuls of dialogue. They focus the eye and mind. Film does this, too, but at 24 frames a second, rather than the one comics afford. A film has to crash through that white border separating panels, and that's the difference between art and artifice. 

Now, Miller's "300" has hit the screen, and unlike "Sin City," director Zack Snyder has taken the concept, the tone, and Miller's design sense but gone his own way with the direction. Key frames of Miller's book are reproduced, but for the most part Snyder has found a way of taking Miller's tropes and making it move and breathing life into it. And it's Snyder's efforts to connect the dots and make Miller's flat-panels three dimensional that lets 300 rise above most comic book adaptations. 

It's still overblown. Some of the dialogue is not only bad, it's bad for today, much less ancient Greece. Example: When King Leonidas meets his opposing King, the bling-encrusted Xerxes--who's not nearly as gay as Miller made him in the book--he takes a look at the Persian's elaborate transportation and says "Let me guess. You must be Xerxes"--a line more weisen-heimer than kingly. 

But it beats the fade-out line on the eve of the final battle: "Unless I miss my guess, we're in for one wild night!" 

Oy. So bad it stings!

300 is a bit too enamored by the CGI-technology to create blood-spurts, but damn, if it doesn't move and hold your interest! There's one shot--of King Leonidas providing point (literally) to an attack done in one long take, and as he dispatches opponent after opponent, at each impact the film is speed-ramped to a crawl, which is as ingenious a way of recreating the framing ability of comics in a moving picture as has been devised. Sort of like Peckinpah's slo-mo cut-aways but self-contained in a single shot. 

So, what did I think of it? I enjoyed it! I may not like Miller's current writing, but one can't fault his illustrative sense, and Snyder brings it to glorious life. It may be gratuitous "homo-erotic war pornography," but it's sure well-constructed homo-erotic war pornography. It makes one anticipate Snyder's promised version of Alan Moore's "Watchmen," although one quails at the suggestion (and it's only been suggested) of Tom Cruise as the Machiavellian super-hero Ozymandius. Not even a Spartan could face that! 

* Miller did go on to make his directorial debut with a film version of the classic comic character "The Spirit".  It was just plain badness. And not in a good way.