This really is the glory days of years passed, 3 film trips in 3 days. The old Emile is back peoples ( although god knows when you will get the reviews). But here i am 6pm on a thursday for a kids film which is about ducks & their migration. Hopefully this is a lot of fun. The trailer looks it anyhow.
Honestly i cant remember how many people were in my screening, but i was the only 1 off millennial i know that for sure (this is why i always try & write my intros in advance).
Trailers, Godzilla, inside out 2, Kungfu panda & i think that was it im not sure otherwise. ahhh it was Garfield that was it.
Before the film started we had a short about the end of the 1st despicable about the guy that was trapped on the moon, that was alright watching him & the minions cause havoc & then he gets trapped on mars. That was a nice short.
& then the film started… & i know its a kids film but i wanted more, i really really did & thats for kids too not just as an adult after in jokes.
Now i didnt know i needed David Mitchell as a self help Guru duck but i now know i do. I was not expecting his voice to be in this film & then ahhhhhhhhh it was so off the scale & out there that im sure i missed something. I was cracking (or quacking) up. I loved it. I need a spin off with him please. Forget minions 10 shorts about self help with that duck would make my mondays much more fun please.
Im not expecting kids films to have loads of adult jokes, but there were 3. Yes 3 just aimed at the parents & 1 was lame. The rest were for the under 8s maybe even under 6. I get kids are the target audience i really do but i was just like ahhh okay then lets see what we can do & twist & innuendo but nah it was just for the littluns for sure.
I understand kids movies can go weird & off the point, but there were points in this where i was like hang on this is too much. I was sitting there going hang on why are we suddenly doing this or that, it makes no sense at all & i was just trying to compute how they thought certain things were a good idea. Like theres a horror scene at the end of act 1, what the fuck is all that about.
This film was heavily advertised as same duck new pond & that pond being new york, but for a film that advertised it being so much in the big city, they hardly spent any time there. Maybe what 3 sights they went to & then spent most of it rescueing a parrot. YEs the chef & the salsa was funny but it felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity for the film. I recon we maybe spent 30 mins in new york & 15 of that was inside a building which could have been in any city in the world.
The life lessons were the standard kids film 3, about wanting to have adventure, respect & growing into yourself. Everyone knows those but they were all just done a little bit lazily & felt forced at times like they knew they had to get the 3 standard lessons into the film otherwise the movie wouldnt get made.
The voice cast was interesting & did work very well & i get we need big names to sell the films for adults but it would be nice to have a few more actual voice actors in it rather than just the names.
Where was the Taylor Swift? The trailers were filled with her music, i was expecting at least a voice cameo or for her songs to be featured but no. Urgh… thats wasnt the only reason i went to see this.
If you want to watch a kids film about some birds after freedom i seriously recommend you watch chicken run dawn of the nugget instead, the migration people must have been really pissed when they realized chicken run was coming out at the same time.
Your really small little kids will have a blast watching this but as an adult you hope this isnt the film they constantly put on going forward when its on streaming because it is just a bit meh if im honest. I will probably forget most things about this film over than David Mitchell.