A One Mann’s Movies Film Review of “Migration” (2024).
It’s half-term in the UK and so a good kids film is just what desperate parents are looking for. And “Migration”, from the Dreamworks “Illumination” studio, delivers just that. It smashed to the top of the box office charts when it was released last week and it has stayed there this week. Which is why, when I tried to take my two grandkids to see it, we struggled to find bookable seats! Great to see the cinemas so packed out for a film!
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Bob the Movie Man’s Grandkid’s Rating:
(Well, Ellis and Harry Windsor’s average rating anyway)
Plot Summary:
Mack (Kumail Nanjiani) is an over-protective father who believes his two ducklings – Dax (Caspar Jennings) and Gwen (Tresi Gazal) – should stay within the safety of their rural pond. But the kids, and his partner Pam (Elizabeth Banks), are desperate to join the other exotic ducks in flying South for the winter. So, goaded by his cranky Uncle Dan (Danny DeVito), he plucks up the courage and embarks on an eventful journey.
Certification:
UK: U; US: PG. (From the BBFC Web Site: “Very mild threat, violence, rude humour”).
Talent:
Starring: Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Caspar Jennings, Tresi Gazal, Danny DeVito, Awkwafina, David Mitchell, Isabela Merced.
Directed by: Benjamin Renner & Guylo Homsy.
Written by: Mike White. (Based on a story by Mike White & Benjamin Renner).
Twitter Handle: #MigrationMovie.
Running Time: 1h 23m.
“Migration” Film Review:
Positives:
- The film is targetted at kids under 10 and it well hit the mark in the packed screening that I attended. All of the kids were very attentive and roared with laughter at the right times.
- The voice cast all do a great job and as always with these things it’s great to pick out the famous voices from the cast as they emerge: Danny DeVito as the crotchetty Uncle Dan; Awkwafina as a battered and bruised city pigeon; and the dulcet British tones of David Mitchell as GooGoo, the head duck at a duck farm.
- One of the best lines, used in the trailer and repeated ad nauseum by my grandson Harry Windsor ever since, happens while the crew is observing a roast duck being prepared in the kitchen: “What’s Duck a L’Orange?”. “It’s you – with L’Orange on top”! LOL. (Mike White… take a bow.)
- It’s pitched at a pleasant 83 minutes to maintain the concentration of the junior audience. To pad this out for the cinema release, it is prefaced by a short Minions film called “Mooned”. I thought this was very funny too, with an essence of “Roadrunner vs Wily Coyote” to it.
Negatives:
- There are sections of this story that didn’t work well for me. Notably, there’s a sequence near the start of the film where the ducks are ‘invited in’ to a heron’s home. It’s all semi-scary Peter Rabbit-style ‘there going to eat us’ threat. But then the film turns 90 degrees and you find out they are friendly herons after all. I thought this section would be confusing and potentially a bit scary for really young kids and it all seemed a bit pointless. I’d have personally preferred longer with the pigeons in New York.
- It’s presumably not this film’s fault, since I’m guessing they were developed in parallel, but a section of the film set on a duck farm is an exact replica of the main plot point in the recent “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” (with that film doing it in a much funnier way).
Summary Thoughts on “Migration”
A good animated feature that the kids will love. The two grandkids I took to see it rated it 8.9/10 (very precise) and 9.5 out of 10. So, that’s a positive vote of confidence then!
Trailer for “Migration”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQfo0HJhCnE .
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