Open Season

[matt]

i have to disagree with you - the truly great kids movies work on two levels - one that kids enjoy and one the adults can enjoy cf. toy story, shrek etc

and as someone who had to sit through garfield with their four year old nephew i can tell you that that movie absolutely sucks. besides if you're going to base your quality control decisions on what a 3 year old would enjoy then why even bother with a plot at all and just have a guy slip on a banana skin for 80 mins or whatever

besides, a lot of the reviews i've seen for this film don't focus on the 'oh no another animated talking animal movie' issue but on the rather more important weak storylines and lack of any humour (in their opinion of course as i've not seen the film)

for example:

Another question: At any point, do the people involved realize they've got a lot of pretty animated images, no jokes, less story, and voice performances that never click together? Those problems abound in Open Season...no one makes it out of this laughless mess unscathed.

Open Season is long on manic energy and bathroom humor but short on real storytelling, emotion, or characters. I realize we’re talking about a children’s movie here ...but even kids deserve movies that strive to be inventive and surprising, rather than just lazy, clichéd, prepackaged nonsense. The directors of Open Season had hands in creating classics like The Lion King, Monsters, Inc., and Toy Story, and they do an admirable job of making their movie sparkle and shine with CGI glitter. But despite this pedigree and craftsmanship, Open Season is little more than paint-by-numbers filmmaking, and it fails in the most important charge of any children’s movie: to transport its young and impressionable audience to a world where anything is possible, rather than to one where everything’s been thought of already.