Storks Review

Sep 21

Preview

PG: Mild Action, Thematic Elements

Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Animation Group, RatPac Entertainment

1 Hr and 27 Minutes ( +5 due to a Lego Ninjago short entitled “The Master”)

Cast: Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, with Danny Trejo, and Stephen Kramer Glickman

REVIEW: If you haven’t realized yet, Warner Bros Animation has recently got the rebirth it needed. In January 2013 when Warner Bros. formed its animation "think tank" with some directors and writers to develop animated films. Some notable names in their tank are John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (Crazy Stupid Love, Focus, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors 1 and 2, The Five Year Engagement, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and of course Phil Lord and Chris Miller (If you don’t know who they are jump off a cliff). After the huge ass success of WAG’s first film The Lego Movie, Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland (former Pixar animator since Toy Story) were assigned to create a film named Storks, an original idea written by Stoller. As WAG fast tracks a shit ton of other Lego film properties (for God sakes we have 2 Lego films releasing next year and a short that plays before this) will Storks be as great as WAG’s first film or does it aspire to be something else?

Storks deliver babies...or at least they used to. Now they deliver packages for global internet giant Cornerstore.com. Junior, the company's top delivery stork, is about to be promoted when he accidentally activates the Baby Making Machine, producing an adorable and wholly unauthorized baby girl. Desperate to deliver this bundle of trouble before the boss gets wise, Junior and his friend Tulip, the only human on Stork Mountain, race to make their first-ever baby drop - in a wild and revealing journey that could make more than one family whole and restore the storks' true mission in the world.

THE GOOD: There has been a lot of animated films released this year that made me bust a gut or two. From Zootopia to The Secret Life of Pets to even Sausage Party these movies were progressively becoming the funniest films in animation this year But that isn’t until I saw Storks. This film is fast, zippy, and frantic as can be. Most films like this are known to fail miserably and come off as annoying. This completely does not. Every single moment including the opening scene, the film is constantly throwing a joke at you. Through dialogue and visual gags throughout, it is relentless. It just gets to you no matter how much of a hard boiled egg you try to be.

It inherits all the animated forms of movement dating back to the 1940s cartoons with rapid speed and running. The designs are new and inventive yet seems familiar to other forms of things you probably have seen before. Each variation of birds have a different design from anthropomorphic storks looking like humans to even penguins who embodies white Deadpool-like eyelids to little details of scruff below their beaks. The numerous amount of expressions of characters with their dialogue and delivery hit you hard because they are so unexpected at times.

I haven’t seen animation that inherited constant visual gags and funny dialogue that consistently worked since. OH MY GOD I GET IT NOW! THIS IS WARNER ANIMATION GROUP’S TEST FOR A NEW LOONEY TUNES MOVIE! I just has to be. The pacing is fast, the the writing is there to make the jokes constant, the animation is there and it is beautiful, the designs resemble a bit to Chuck Jones's Looney Tunes animation notably on the wolves appearing close to different variations of Wile E. Coyotes and most of all it is insane. Just like any Looney Tunes short from the 50s-80s this film is complete madness yet strives to be creative and inventive any way it can be. It doesn’t rule any laws of physics and when it does, it follows a side splitting gag. If this film was Warner Animation’s test to develop a fully CG Looney Tunes movie, this is the perfect blueprint to start from.

Another great aspect about Storks is its voice cast. There are no A list big time names voicing the leads and yet one or two as side characters. But the majority of the voice cast are notable TV actors and comedians. You got Ty Burrell of Modern Family, Andy Samberg of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Key & Peele of….Key & Peele who has one of the most creative gags in the whole film. But two of the best characters in this film are voiced by people most people don’t know.

Tulip for example is a fast, over the top, and borderline crazy character who is voiced by Canadian comedian Katie Crown. You don’t know who is Katie Crown you say? Have you ever seen Total Drama Island? Remember the jungle girl Izzy who was insane and random which was so many reasons why she made you laugh in the show? Yeah that’s her and Tulip is that character who has all of those traits similar to Izzy but has a heart of gold. Her delivery is on a level of randomness more than Izzy, but more of a Holtzman from 2016's Ghostbusters and her voice chemistry with Samberg as Junior keeps her grounded.

Another notable voice is comedian and Big Time Rush manager (in the Nickelodeon show of course) Stephen Glickman as Pigeon Toady who has bro douchebag voice similar to Nick Kroll in Sausage Party, but what makes him so good is that he has mannerisms that reminds of that guy in college or high school that tries so hard to get people to like him so he agrees with what everyone says. His voice is so funny that sometimes you don’t even know what he says sometimes but he has some of the best gags including a musical transition that comes out of nowhere but it is extremely funny due to the fact that you would expect that song coming out of his character.

THE BAD: Storks is one of those films that both grasps storytelling and jokes equally, but there are times the story is inconsistent and uneven. The movie focuses on Tulip and Junior going on this grand adventure delivering this baby then goes to the Gardner family preparing for the baby to come and they tonally feel like separate films. It has little bits of awkward moments within the leads where there are discussions about being a family with a girl and a Stork. There’s even a Stork voiced by Danny Trejo that screams out how he was in love with Tulip as a baby and its weird. No rephrasing in the script but its just there. But then somehow through the final ten minutes of the film, it pulls a total Arthur Christmas within its story. It makes a profound statement how babies bring families together no matter what sex, or race they are. You see a collection of different families being interracial or homosexual given babies which is both heartwarming and mature for a kids film.

LAST STATEMENT: Storks is an originally creative film that is frantically fast paced and constantly hilarious with a genuinely heartwarming message for all sorts of families.

Rating: 4/5 | 84%