Review of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010) by Moviemastereddy — 05 Apr 2016

Zack Snyder, director of “300,” “Watchmen” and the coming “Sucker Punch,” aims for younger males with the animated “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole,” and a mighty strange bird the movie is.

Based on the books by Kathryn Lasky, the film might be called (after Harry Potter’s postal pet) “Hedwig of the Rings.” What it isn’t is anything like “Happy Feet,” George Miller’s charming eco-fable about penguins. “Killer Talons” is more like it; parents will find footwork of a more lacerating (if largely bloodless) sort.

The story is a battle between good owls (the Guardians), who live in Ga’Hoole — an arboreal paradise that would be familiar to the Na’vi of “Avatar” and the Ewoks of “Return of the Jedi” — and the bad (the Pure Ones), who dwell in a barren wasteland. A good owl, Soren (voiced by Jim Sturgess), is kidnapped, and sees his brother, Kludd (Ryan Kwanten), lured to the evil side. Soren escapes to alert his flock, and soon winged warriors are donning helmets and metal claws and swooping vengefully in slow-motion conflagration.

Mr. Snyder, an old hand at green-screen effects, now has an entirely digital canvas to play with, and every feather, sunset and 3-D perspective (it is in both 3-D and normal formats) is rendered in impeccable detail. The voice talent, much of it Australian (Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving, Abbie Cornish), is also top-notch. If only the premise weren’t so familiar and the female characterizations so tiresomely backward (Helen Mirren is an imperious harpy, while Soren’s friend Gylfie, played by Emily Barclay, is wide-eyed, fragile and helpless).

“Legend of the Guardians” may be a hoot, but for all its pyrotechnics, it fails to soar.