So everyone's talking about how the animated Ashton Kutcher in Open Season beat out the real-life Ashton Kutcher in The Guardian for the top spot at the box office this weekend. I think possibly it's that these days, with the economy in the dumps and gas prices so high (thank you Bush administration) that families can't afford to go on nice trips anymore for vacations, so they just go to the movies instead.
Either that or it was just that The Guardian looked like a REALLY dumb movie from the trailer.
Which isn't saying much, since Open Season didn't look all that great either... but it did have the gimmick of IMAX 3D. And so it was, on Saturday, when the MILF brood found themselves sitting in the IMAX theater with the goofy glasses on our faces, ready to be thrilled and amazed. The verdict?
"Meh."
The two older kids thought that the movie was basically just a Shrek knock-off while the youngest said that the glasses made her eyes hurt.
From an adult standpoint, the movie has two things going for it... the 3D gimmick, which is put to very good use in a number of scenes, and some very talented CGI animators. The movie suffers from a pedestrian plot where Boog (Martin Lawrence), a grizzly bear that has been rescued by a park ranger, has become accustomed to the domestic life. After a series of unfortunate events, he meets up with Donkey, er... I mean, Elliot (Kutcher), an unfortunate deer who has been run down by a hunter's truck. Through a misunderstanding caused by Elliot, Boog loses his happy home and is sent back to live in the wild, which he is totally unaccustomed to. Along the way, he meets lots of fuzzy little animals with little to no personality, although Billy Connolly, as McSquizzy the squirrel, is funny in the same way that Groundskeeper Willy is funny on The Simpsons... i.e. thick Scottish brogue accents are inherently comical in this country.
Patrick Warburton does his "Putty" thing as king of the deer or elk or whatever... he's become ubiquitous in cartoons these days it seems, and he always just does his same regular voice. Patrick, you can only coast so long.
Lawrence's Boog is serviceable, but he just does a fairly uninspired "street thang" that is basically just his regular voice with maybe a little deepened growl to it. Kutcher on the other hand, while not doing anything special for the voice of Elliot, manages to impart a nice sense of personality to the character, wisely underplayed considering the success of Eddie Murphy's Donkey.
The movie seems to acknowledge that it's a Shrek rip-off early on... right in the very first scene, where we get a Boog roar that's right out of Shrek, complete with saliva spray and similar camera angle. Later on, when Boog's "talent show" for the park visitors is interrupted by Elliot, one person in the crowd shouts "look! A donkey!" There were also a number of scenes from other films, for example the scene where Boog and Elliot cut loose inside a Kwik-E-Mart to a musical montage is right out of The Breakfast Club.
The character designs are also all over the map... It's unfortunate because there is no cohesiveness to any of the designs. (Can you tell? I see a LOT of kid's cartoons.) It looks as if each one was designed by a different artist, without any one director having final say. Strangely, while you would expect that similarity from a live-action film, it's essential in an animated feature to provide a distinct vision, and it's lacking here. Park Ranger Beth is essentially The Man with the Yellow Hat in drag, the town's sheriff is essentially one of those old dried-up "apple dolls," and the main hunter/villain looks like he's out of Redneck Rampage with a little bit of Wile E. Coyote thrown in for good measure. Even the animals don't look like they're from the same forest.
On the other hand, the animation, is very well done, with Boog's fur being a particularly awesome effect, especially in 3D. It looked completely realistic, and made you want to just snuggle up next to that big ol' furry body and cozy up for the night. The film, which I think might be the first effort for Sony Pictures Animation, is a homerun as far as the actual animation and 3D goes. It made me realize just how much better TRUE 3D is versus the fake 3D they used in Superman Returns (and what they will use for The Nightmare Before Christmas, so beware) and how unfortunate it is that they decided not to use for the IMAX release of Happy Feet, which was originally meant to be in 3D, including many scenes from the trailer where things are flying out at you, but now won't.
So... in a nutshell... if you're going to go see it, see it on IMAX 3D. Otherwise, there's not much point.
