My Movie Review on Storks (2016)
Hello, hello, my friends.
This is your friendly film and TV show reporter here with another review.
Today, I will be making an analysis on Warner Animation Group’s 2016 film “Storks”.
Here’s the summary of this movie, which is also the 2nd film done by Warner Brothers’s new animation department:
The film follows a hotshot package delivering Stork named Junior (played by Andy Samberg), who works for a delivery company named Cornerstore. This company used to deliver babies, until a stork named Hunter (played by Kelsey Grammer) took over as boss and turned it into a postal service.
In gratitude for his impressive work, Hunter decides to promote Junior as boss of Cornerstore, but only if he fires the company’s only human, Tulip (played by Katie Crown).
However, when Tulip and Junior accidentally activate the baby-making machine, and turn a letter from a boy named Nate Gardner (played by Anton Starkman) into a baby, the two of them must work together to secretly deliver the baby to its new family before their boss gets wise.
Meanwhile, Nate, along with his workaholic Mom (played by Jennifer Aniston) and Dad (played by Ty Burrell), await the new addition to the family.
I’m not gonna lie, when I first saw this film I didn’t know what to make of it. So, I saw this film a second time recently. Now that I’ve had my second taste of the film, I know exactly what to say about it.
Personally, I found this film to be a 50/50 venture, like the live-action “Beauty and the Beast” movie and “Smurfs: The Lost Village”. In this case, there were things about it that were tasteful and things about it that were flavorless.
The story, written by Nicholas Stoller, was really original. The concept of storks delivering babies, from what I recall, often played a minor part in films and TV shows, such as Disney’s “Dumbo (1941)”. However, I don’t think anyone but Stoller could’ve come up with it being the main concept, and as a film about a delivery business. The only trouble, however, was that some of the story decisions, such as how Junior’s wing got broken, were rather questionable, mainly to the point where you’d think “Really? That’s the best they could come up with?”
On the subject of the animation and direction of this film, I can definitely say that they certainly aren’t the best compared to, say...that of Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks. However, I can also tell that Warner Brothers wasn’t trying to be like its competitors either. As the second film to be made by WB’s new animation department after “The Lego Movie”, and the first movie outside of that franchise, you can clearly see that they were clearly looking for their own style.
The direction by Stoller and Doug Sweetland certainly did a great job at not just being zany, but also being full of warmth and meaning. WB may not have found the right animation style outside of the Lego franchise here, but that certainly didn’t stop them from trying to find it.
One thing I couldn’t help but feel bothered by concerning the direction was the slight camera-shaking that happened at times. I don’t know why that occasionally happened, but it seemed to be a lot more bothersome than necessary.
As far as the comedy section of this film goes, there was definitely a mix of hilarious and unfunny gags here.
The hilarious ones, I believe, definitely came from the wolves and Pigeon Toady (played by Stephen Kramer Glickman).
For instance, there was this one moment where Pigeon Toady was saying “How you like me now?”. He likes the phrase he used so much, that he makes a brief one minute song out of it in his own head.
Some of the less-than-stellar jokes include this:
After Toady tells Hunter in a steam room about what Junior and Tulip are doing, Hunter flies off in a helicopter. In being activated, Toady’s towel flies off of him, showing his butt, which is pixelated.
The performances of the cast, as well as the characters, were also elements that I have divided opinions on.
As a protagonist, Junior just didn’t seem to click well. I mean, he does have character development, but he makes so many stupid decisions and mistakes that it’s hard to really look at him as anything but an idiot. Aside from his growing soft and caring side towards Tulip and the baby, it’s actually been really hard to discern what he learned and what helped him grow as a character.
The chemistry that Andy Samberg and Katie Crown created for Junior and Tulip was good, but it also didn’t feel right for some reason. I hold nothing against the two performers at all, really. It’s just that their voice-acting and dialogue, even when their characters weren’t together, seemed exaggerated and unnatural. Additionally, the two of them seemed to try too hard to be funny, with the end result not being good.
It felt the same way with other performances and characters as well, such as Christopher Nicholas Smith’s performance as Dougland the Chicken.
It wasn’t that way with everyone, though.
As a matter of fact, the performances of Keegan-Michael Key as the Alpha Wolf and Jordan Peele as the Beta Wolf, as well as the chemistry between their characters, was awesome! They literally owned every moment moment, and were over-the-top hilarious. Every line and moment their characters had, Key and Peele were able to make them so natural and funny at the same time.
Stephen Kramer Glickman likewise gave an unexpectedly good performance as Pigeon Toady. Some of the dialogue he was given did seem slightly on the unnatural side, but yet…he was able to make everything his character said both normal and funny. He definitely stole the show.
Likewise, Kelsey Grammer sounded like he was having fun playing the part of Hunter. He wasn’t trying too hard to be funny just by talking, like Samberg and Crown were doing. He delivers his performance of Hunter with a sense of calm, while trying his best to be right on track and making every piece of dialogue normal.
So, all in all, the performers I find myself commending the most, in terms of excellent voice-acting, are Key, Peele, Grammer, and Glickman. The others, not so much.
In terms of the film’s music, I’d like to say that even though people will likely not be rushing to by the film’s songs and soundtrack, brothers Mychael Danna & Jeff Danna did do a good job at giving their music lots of life and warmth. Their work was able to stand tall among other elements of the film.
In the end, Nicholas Stoller’s “Storks” does manage to be a cute watch thanks to the original story, some solid gags, and terrific and funny vocal performances from Key, Peele, Grammer, and Glickman. But, if it was put into a boxing match with Disney’s “The Emperor’s New Groove”, Emperor will obviously win the whole match by a knockout.
So, I rate WB’s “Storks”, a solid three out of five stars.
