2016 has been an astoundingly good year for animation. Kubo and the Two Strings is not only the best film of the year so far, but will in all likelihood stay that way by year’s end. Zootopia is a worthy successor to not just the cutesy animal fair that Disney’s best known for, but buddy cop flicks like Beverley Hills Cop. Sausage Party — probably the pleasantest surprise of the year so far — proves that there’s room for decidedly more adult stories in a medium that’s far too often dismissed as “kids stuff.” Even Finding Dory hit a nostalgic sweet spot that too few sequels manage to find.
Storks, however, is none of these things. It’s the same, pedestrian, moralizing and only occasionally entertaining kid flick that you see shoehorned in between Disney and Pixar releases that hoping to make a quick buck on a kid-friendly concept. It doesn’t even hold up against this year’s more forgettable cartoons. Ratchet and Clank, Ice Age: Collision Course, Kung Fu Panda 3, The Secret Life of Pets — for all of their faults — were all far more capably made films than this.
The thing is, though, that I was actually mostly on board with the movie going into it. While it was hardly blazing new ground with its opposites-attract, road flick premise, it was tapping into and modernizing an aspect of childhood mythology that seems to have been left by the wayside in recent years: reimagining baby-delivering storks as a brick-and-mortar business forced to reinvent its brand in order to stay relevant in an increasingly tech-driven world.
Babies are out. Packages are in. When the one Human in the otherwise exclusively bird-staffed outfit accidentally turns on the moth-balled baby-making machine, she makes a whoops-a-baby that threatens the corporate image — and corporate sponsorship — that the company has cultivated over years of restructuring. She and a well-meaning Stork coworker need to quickly deliver the baby before any of the higher ups find out about it.
The problem is that the movie never allows itself to have a quiet moment or to sink its teeth into the dramatic meat of its material. I’m not saying that the movie needs to be Little Miss Sunshine, but I am saying that there is unrealized potential in a film that was relegated to the role of purely disposable entertainment.
This ninety-minute movie has no less than five on-the-ground villains. There’s the greedy CEO who wants to maintain the new status quo of Storks-as-UPS-delivery-men. There’s a toady little pigeon (who they actually named “Pigeon Toady”) who’s basically the corporate equivalent of the douche from Sausage Party. There’s a seemingly crazed old Stork who went off the deep end when he fell in love with a baby (one of our two protagonists) and stalks her throughout the film. There’s a pack of arctic wolves who interlock with one another in order to transform into an increasingly illogical series of objects (including a bridge, a boat, a submarine, a minivan and an airplane). There’s even a band of ninja penguins who abduct — and just as quickly lose — the baby for a total of two scenes.
The movie is so busy shuffling from villain to villain that we never get to know — or care about — either of the main characters. They just jump from plot point to plot point before killing the mech-clad CEO and get back to the business of delivering babies. Its loud, busy and in every way the gaudy corporate product that it seems to argue against in its own anti-Amazon narrative.
There are a few great scenes lost in its mostly insufferable story. The penguin fight scene was actually a lot of fun to watch (even if it was spoiled in its entirety in the trailer). The scenes of an only child pining of a baby brother (with ninja skills) and struggling to be noticed by his incessantly busy parents are genuinely heart-warming. When the two protagonists are alone together, they actually make for a compelling duo. The problem is that these moments are so few and far between that they can’t possibly elevate the rest of the movie.
If you find yourself starved for some family friendly entertainment in the coming weeks, Storks is not the answer. Kubo is an amazing film and should still be playing in most theaters. Even the rather disappointing Secret Life of Pets is still showing in my local theater, and that’s a worthier thing to watch than this. Otherwise, just tough it out until Moana hits theaters next month.
Rating: 3/5
Buy on BluRay: Absolutely not.
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