Reviews

This movie may not have performed so well in the box-office, but to me, it is still a gem among the CGI animated movies. Matter off fact, I'd argue it was better than a lot of 3D animated movies or movies with CGI in them that are coming out now.

Based on a book series, this movie already technically had a strong starting point, especially since multiple books were out then. The fact that books kept coming out alone might have boosted one's quality, but as it were, movie adaptations of books are never 100% accurate to the books because some things just don't translate well into a movie, and also, there is not an unlimited amount of time to tell the story in. Which in turn might have discouraged book readers to view the movie.

It may have also discouraged those not into animal movies, or those not yet familiar with the great side of non-human animal books - these tend to have everything books following human lives have, but also incorporate the world from the point of view of another being (granted, it's not strictly 100% accurate to how non-humans view the world, but still, it's refreshing and different to have a change of pov), which can be fun. For some reason though, they're never as popular as books revolving around humans and humanoids. Even so, one might have thought people would still give it a shot: after all Lion King and Bambi were popular, and if Disney can do it, surely someone else could to.

Instead... it kinda... didn't do well.

Not because the movie was bad, per se.

Visually, it is a stunner, even over a decade after its release. The designs are detailed, yet not overly cluttered, and despite some of them being fantastical, they feel plausible and real. Though limited by owl physiology and anatomy and their ease of movement, the owls in this movie are still capable of expressing a wide range of emotions using only their beaks and eyes - a stellar feat from an otherwise very realistic looking movie. This alone makes it a better animated movie than the likes of the "live-action" Lion King remake.

And, while perhaps not as memorable as some of the more mainstream picks, the sountrack absolutely fits the scenes and is chilling for the ears to behold. It's clearly supposed to have this sort of "fantastical religious song" aesthetic, since belief is kind of a big theme of the movie and you can hear that. The voice-acting, well, that's a little bit hit and miss depending on the characters, but there are definitely some voices that really match the face - surprising, considering these are humans speaking for owls, but, nevertheless Nyra and the Metalbeak especially sound like the owls they voice act for.

Message-wise, it's fairly standard, "good-versus-evil", "belief is powerful" stuff, but that's not necessarily bad, just a little generic. Plot and world-building wise it's quite a whacky one (for a western movie), with child soldiers, brainwashing (moon-blinking), twists of betrayal, weapons suited to the owl anatomy and here and there even some fantastical "owl" vocabulary... similar to the books, though I don't think it uses quite as much as the books. The few environments we do get to see feel epic and cool, even if some of them are quite barren and quite a few are rather dark. Then again, the darkness fits the tone of the movie, which is a lot less comedic than some of my typical choices.

The comedy, I'll admit, isn't all that great, and, as far as characters go there maybe isn't as wide a range of fun characters as in some stories... but there are enough characters that are interesting to watch that it doesn't get boring. Some of my favourites are Kludd, Ms Plithiver (the snake), and Nyra... though I very much dislike the idea of them getting together as they allegedly do in the books (which isn't entirely unfitting considering how dark the movie is, but it's disturbing and nef all the same). There is also the issue of no character really changing much - Soren continues to be naive and full of faith throughout, Kludd continues to be cynical and driven to beat his brother throughout, Nyra is manipulative throughout -, but that's not inherently necessary to change, especially in a movie that isn't terribly long anyway. They're interesting enough as they are in this one movie, though it would be nice to see them grow, but at this point I've kind of given up on the idea of another movie for this series.

Regardless, it's a pity this movie never got the attention that I believe it deserved. It might not be AS good as I'm making it out to be, but it certainly didn't deserve to fall so short of a good profit, especially since it's hardly boring.

Having now seen both Ms Marvel and Loki, I have to say that I have no idea how Ms Marvel got a lower rating, when really they both were very similar in that they started off seemingly promising only to get dragged out in the middle and then got us hyped up at the end, but when you consider the series as a whole they don't deliver quite as well as they could have. I would have even rated this show a little higher had it not been so dreadfully overrated after giving this some thought... because, finally we're getting something focused on Loki... but sadly, it is not the Loki we know and have come to find entertaining. It is not the Loki that falls down and gets back up again. It's not the Loki that was far more conflicted and a far darker shade of grey than this series intends to portray him as, and it is not the Loki that took so long to develop only for him to suddenly be see the error of his ways after a quick run through over the life he would have lived.

Perhaps it was a mistake that Avengers: Endgame opened a door to this insanity, because thus far all it's gotten us are some subpar series that largely draw on the adoration we already have for the character with minimal effort to bring back what we loved about those characters and /improve on it/.

Instead we get a gender-bent Loki, some queer baiting that amounts to absolutely nothing of substance and bunch of self-cest that I'm sure even Tumblr could do better and some fairly mid - and at times honestly quite infuriating world building. Now, to be fair it wasn't a complete loss. Loki's new guy friend has some fun interactions with him, I actually really liked Ms Minutes (Tara Strong is a real gem, I swear), and in concept it's not a bad idea to have more people of colour in a show... except, pretty much all the people of colour are either villains or have been conned into siding with the villians, they barely get given much time and I just don't think they picked the most talented people they could or gave them the best directions and script they could... so... I dunno, I feel kind of bad for them. Almost as bad as I do for the character assassination of Loki, but not quite as much because let's be honest we've known this character for years now, whereas these people only show on screen for a few minutes.

Music-wise they just ruined "Holding out for a Hero", and while it's not all bad, it's not exactly memorable otherwise either. They definitely have the skills to pull off some crazy looking CGI but honestly... the landscapes they chose were so lazy and something was missing. At least, for how weird Asgard looked at times it looked vaguely creative compared to what we got with these other worlds. And acting wise, heck I don't even think Hiddleston was at his best, let alone the script.

Honestly? I would have loved for Loki to become something of an antihero over the course of a series, I would have loved seeing various worlds and whatnot... but honestly, if it weren't for CrokiLoki I wouldn't have even cared for any of the Loki varients and this has to be one of the worst ways of going about a Loki redemption arc. (And saying that, Avengers: Infinity War was pretty heckin' disappointing but not to this degree.) In fairness to the series, the character assassination of Loki might have began before Loki was even all that popular. Avengers Loki is very distinct from Thor Loki which in fairness could be attributed to manipulations by The Other and Thanos, but once we get to Thor Ragnarok that's where it all really begins and Loki starts being treated like little else than comic relief - nothing wrong with him being comic relief from time to time, but his whole time on screen was comic relief as opposed to the emotional beats in the first two Thor movies or his cemented role as villain in the Avengers... which I think takes away from the complexity of Loki's nature from those initial three movies featuring that character.

Detentionaire is a show that exists. At best, it's a watchable show with a plot and nice backgrounds.

With lizard monsters that are barely lizards, gorgeous backdrops to very basic character art that looks like it's definitely been traced, veeery obvious villains, veeeery stereotypical - and often obnoxious - characters, and far too many episodes to excuse the rush and unsatisfying ending... it's a fairly average show.

It saves itself by not having too much of an obnoxious MC - I've seen worse - and a cute Tazzlewurm mascot, but besides that there's only really Kimmy, Biffy and the first vice principle we get introduced to. Everyone beyond them is either sorta' okay, meh, or just the worst.

The comedy is usually brutally unfunny - though in the later seasons it does improve a little - and let's not even talk about the "romance". Even the friendships between anyone but Biffy and Lee and Jenny and Tina are just kind of bad...

Kimmy and Biffy are relatively okay in their dynamics but at this point I've seen so many tsundere relationships that this is just kind of boring.

Also, I just don't know enough about the lizard monsters to want them to lose, nor to feel sympathetic for them. Characters are largely one-dimensional and their quirks aren't any more interesting. And at times their words and actions are plain annoying and nonsensical.

You've zapped so many people for the purposes of self-protection, why not add another guy who is so obviously a potential threat? You think a bunch of teachers - even highschool teachers - would have ANY problems with the chicken or the egg riddle? Obviously the egg came first, from an evolutionary standpoint that's a given! And from a creationist stand point chances were it was the chicken because the egg wouldn't survive on its own. Basically you've got an obvious answer regardless, don't act like it's some kind of mystery; it isn't.

Oh and let's not talk about how so obviously sus the VC was...

The opening sequence is... fine. Not bad, not the most amazing thing ever, certainly more interesting than some I've seen. Ending sequence is... likewise. It doesn't really compare to anime or the better done cartoons.

And a cartoon having a plot? That's such a low bar, fellow reviewers and review readers.

If you want an okay cartoon that is better than Fleabag Monkeyface (one of the worst cartoons in existence if you ask me), by all means, this one fits the bill. But this definitely isn't a 9 or 10/10.