Open season on kidmovie cliches
Rabbit-throwing shenanigans aside, children’s movie is, well, childish
TIMOTHY BROWN STAFF
PHOTO: COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES ANIMATION
It’s a mix between Shrek, Homeward Bound, and practically every other children’s movie ever made. Open Season’s trite plot, clichéd characters, and terrible soundtrack might make a person wish it were open season on the people who allow these movies to be made, let alone allow voice-acting from Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher. However, like Lando Calrissian, this movie fi nds a way to redeem itself, sort of.
Open Season follows Boog the grizzly bear (voiced by Martin Lawrence), a tamed bear living with a forest ranger (voiced by Deborah Messing) in a mountain town. Together they put on shows for locals and tourists, and seem to live a happy, comfortable life. Of course, things go terribly awry when, through a series of unfortunate
Directed by: Roger Allers, Jill
Culton & Anthony Stacchi
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♥♥ out of 5
yet comical events, Boog is thrust into the wild with only days before hunting season begins. While Boog doesn’t have a Buzz Lightyear or an annoying Donkey to disrupt his happy life, he basically has the equivalent. It’s a talking deer who has become an outcast from his herd. The deer, who is named Elliot (voiced by Ashton Kutcher) is slightly annoying, likes to sing and has a cheery demeanor.
The main characters are completely recycled, and so is the plot. By the time there was a pivotal plot point in the movie, one could easily map out the rest of the fi lm. Understandably, this is a children’s movie and the plot, or the characters for that matter, don’t have to be all that complex, but even children can diff erentiate between a new, intriguing story and one that has been put through the DVD player time and time again. Not surprisingly, the directors and the writers have all been involved with previous big-budget animation projects whose themes and characters have been copied in Open Season. The directors are Roger Allers (Lion King), Jill Culton (involved with Toy Story and Monsters Inc.), and Anthony Stacchi (involved with Hook), with a writing team consisting of Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman, both of whom wrote Brother Bear and Chicken Little.
With this being Sony’s fi rst jump to computer-animated features, I’m not really surprised they would try to imitate other movies from the genre. You get a lineup of directors and writers who’ve had experience with this exact structure, you copy almost every idea from those movies and then release it with less-than-stellar voice actors. Unfortunately for Sony, this jump into this already cluttered genre might’ve come a bit too late. Maybe if Open Season was released a few years earlier, it might’ve come off as a little more original.
As previously mentioned, the fi lm does have some redeeming qualities. Th ose qualities are found primarily in the side characters. They are what really add the heart and the humour into this otherwise generic flick.
At one point, Elliot uses rabbits as projectiles to throw at a window to get in order Boog’s attention. While this might not sit well with rabbit enthusiasts, to most others this use of rabbits might constitute the funniest and most absurd part of Open Season. There are also a few other moments that will linger on in your head well after the movie is done. Th ose few jokes placed throughout the movie appear to be a way of keeping adults entertained right until the end.
Even with its redeeming factors, Open Season is really not worth remembering. While this fi lm might amuse children for a little while, I can hardly see it becoming a must-own DVD. It might be best to hold out until the next computer-animated spectacle.
