Storks (U.)
Directed by Nicolas Stoller, Doug Sweetland.
Featuring Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Kelsey Grammer and Anton Starkman. 90 mins
It's a quirk of our society that while having and raising children is a reveared, celebrated activity, that society no longer has any use for children who are childish. Every cultural force is pushing for them to grow up as quickly as possible. Storks, a children's animation that doesn't seem to have any real feel for entertaining children, may be the apotheosis of this.
The premise is that storks have abandoned baby delivery and have monetized their delivery service to become an anthropomorphic version of Amazon, called Cornerstore.com. But then a child, whose estate agent parents (Aniston, Burrell) can't find five minutes to play with him, requests a baby brother and reactivates the dormant baby delivery service which ends up with a stork called Junior (Samberg) and an orphan girl (Crown) who works there – don't ask, it's not worth explaining – having to secretly deliver the baby without the boss (Grammer) noticing. Now, does any part of that synopsis suggest charm or enchantment to you?
I hated this film, but it seems most people found it bearable or enjoyable. It does have two or three inspired bits of visual humour and one or two really funny lines, but overall the performances are too frantic, while the rhythms of the central Samberg/ Crown double act's delivery are too adult. The whole thing moves at such a speed it is as if they are trying to put as much distance between themselves and the premise as possible.
Storks comes to us from the Warners Animation Group and was preceded by a trailer for a Lego Batman movie and a Lego short. It seems that the adult savvy humour of the Lego Movie is going to be their house style but here the formula feels smug and aloof.
Directed by Nicolas Stoller, Doug Sweetland.
Featuring Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Kelsey Grammer and Anton Starkman. 90 mins
It's a quirk of our society that while having and raising children is a reveared, celebrated activity, that society no longer has any use for children who are childish. Every cultural force is pushing for them to grow up as quickly as possible. Storks, a children's animation that doesn't seem to have any real feel for entertaining children, may be the apotheosis of this.
The premise is that storks have abandoned baby delivery and have monetized their delivery service to become an anthropomorphic version of Amazon, called Cornerstore.com. But then a child, whose estate agent parents (Aniston, Burrell) can't find five minutes to play with him, requests a baby brother and reactivates the dormant baby delivery service which ends up with a stork called Junior (Samberg) and an orphan girl (Crown) who works there – don't ask, it's not worth explaining – having to secretly deliver the baby without the boss (Grammer) noticing. Now, does any part of that synopsis suggest charm or enchantment to you?
I hated this film, but it seems most people found it bearable or enjoyable. It does have two or three inspired bits of visual humour and one or two really funny lines, but overall the performances are too frantic, while the rhythms of the central Samberg/ Crown double act's delivery are too adult. The whole thing moves at such a speed it is as if they are trying to put as much distance between themselves and the premise as possible.
Storks comes to us from the Warners Animation Group and was preceded by a trailer for a Lego Batman movie and a Lego short. It seems that the adult savvy humour of the Lego Movie is going to be their house style but here the formula feels smug and aloof.
