Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. 3D

Other critics didn't like this. But I did.

This is from the same group of people who thought, "Hey, we did a great job of creating realistic penguins in Happy Feet, so let's do another movie with animals. Let's still do birds, so we can milk our feather-animation software for all it's worth." That company's name is Animal Logic, so go figure. 

First thing that struck me was the cinematography. Exemplary, in the words of one of the owls. Although I do have a problem with the owls' names. Their names are too fantastic. Meaning it's the stereotype names from fantasy stories, minus the apostrophes and whatnot. Names like "Eglantine" look good on the page, but they're really not practical for film characters. Couldn't they have named their owls "Mary" or "John" or whatever other English names they could come up with, seeing as all the owls speak with a British accent?

Wait, I was talking about cinematography. Exemplary, in the words of one of the owls. Wait, I think I already said that. Anyway, watching the end credits, I discovered that this film had no cinematographer. The closest things were "lighting artists" and "lighting supervisors". Maybe the film purists refuse to consider those who do not really look behind a camera lens as cinematographers. Well, I think they should reconsider. The artists responsible for the overall visual look and feel did a very great job. This film looked very...fantastic. Meaning it's like the stereotype fantasy films, except with too much sunsets. I personally have no problem with the excessive use of sunsets. I mean, they're owls. The only daylight they ever see is dusk and dawn.

Story-wise: predictable. It's based on a fantasy book. You can tell from the title. It has a name with an apostrophe. Ga'Hoole. Any name with an apostrophe is a fantasy name. However, director Zack Snyder did a great job with the pacing. It didn't really feel like just ninety minutes. But the Cain and Abel theme? Please. That's so Book of Genesis. And you all know how old that book is.

Action-wise: exemplary. That's the third time I used that word. Well of course, it's Zack Snyder. Just imagine 300, except we have owls instead of Spartans, and feathers instead of abs. Complete with the slow-motion Matrix shots.

3D-wise: Excellent. The depth of their close-ups is quite something. Of course, it's CGI. Doing that with a real 3D camera is quite difficult. That or I haven't figured out how to do it yet. And I'm still deciding if this film has more eye-popping 3D than Despicable Me.

Also, this film includes a Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner short. In 3D. This alone makes it worth watching.


*some info from IMDb (with a new look)
pic from welcometomusicparadise.blogspot.com


Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. USA/Australia. 2010.


Rating: Seven out of ten.
3D-ness: Nine out of ten.