Stork mythology can be located in Greek, Chinese, Israeli, and a multitude of other cultures, but the folklore of storks bringing parents a newborn is believed to have started in Germany hundreds of years ago. Then entered the late, famed storyteller Hans Christian Andersen with his popularized fable THE STORKS in the 19th century. And now, in the 21st century, moviegoers have an animated CGI version of a tale shared the world over with the new Warner Bros. Pictures release STORKS.
In this version, we find that storks have “quit their day jobs” so to speak, and taken on the more convenient – and less emotionally risky – task of delivering packages for Cornerstone.com – just packages, not babies! That is until main character Junior (voiced by Andy Samberg) has to fix an error courtesy of the only “orphaned” human on Stork Mountain, Tulip (voiced by Katie Crown), by doing the unthinkable – actually delivering a baby.
With several obstacles and mishaps – which include encounters with hungry wolves (with leader of the pack voiced by the hilarious Keegan-Michael Key), a jealous co-worker pigeon who too closely resembles an animated “stoner” (voiced by Stephen Kramer Glickman) out to sabotage Junior’s chance of becoming boss, Tulip’s stalker of a stork named Jasper (voiced by Danny Trejo) and Junior’s angry boss Hunter (voiced by Kelsey Grammer) trying to abort his mission – “Storks” is packed with enough material to deliver the goods (no pun intended).
However, there were many scenes where I believed the humor was off – for instance, I’m so not joking about that “stoner,” who’s probably supposed to more closely resemble a surfer (I guess), pigeon. There’s a whole “How You Like Me Now” singing pigeon sequence that was more annoying than funny, and appeared disjointed in its placement.
There were moments where “Storks” was definitely laugh out loud funny for both children and adults, but too many others where both struggled to laugh – for kids they were a bit out there and for adults they were more of a “why.”
Created by the studio who gave us “The Lego Movie,” the animation in “Storks” is of course fantastic and visually pleasing to watch on the big screen. Unlike its predecessor however, the humor relies more on goof and less on wit.
I must admit, however, the ending of this movie is so freaking cute, that it almost makes up for the miss-the-mark jokes throughout the remainder.
Another plus were the two shorts – one featuring a Ninjago Lego theme and the other previewing the The Lego Batman Movie – that screened before the movie and were quite funny – especially the latter, which will certainly have people excited for its 2017 film release.
So what did the junior contributor Jayla think of the “Storks?” In her words, it was “good,” however she really didn’t want to talk much, her good sounded almost like “meh,” and her fatigue (it was a 7pm screening) after a full day at school began to outweigh her attention span in the theater. I’ve noted that even when she is tired, it won’t stop her from fully enjoying and sharing her opinion on various scenes in a film. With “Storks,” Jayla watched in its entirety, followed along quite well, but “good” was all I got when she was questioned – nothing more, nothing less!
Final recommendation – there aren’t many kid options currently in the theaters. So, if you’re wanting to do an outing, and really aren’t particular about the humor (i.e. as long as it’s for the little ones could be your motto), “Storks” may be a good choice for your family. Just don’t go into it expecting anything that parallels Lego movie humor.
But you may want to skip this one if you have really inquisitive children – who haven’t received the “birds & bees” talk, and might demand to know where babies actually come from! 😉
STORKS opens in theaters nationwide on September 23.
Until next thought, Thomasena
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