For those who wonder how babies are made, here’s your answer.
(2016) Animated Feature (Warner Brothers) Starring the voices of Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Anton Starkman, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Danny Trejo, Stephen Kramer Glickman, Chris Smith, Awkwafina, Ike Barinholtz, Jorma Taccone, Amanda Lund. Directed by Doug Sweetland and Nicholas Stoller
In a cutthroat commercial world, one must adapt to survive. Nobody knows that better than the storks, who at one time delivered babies exclusively. However, as satisfying as that job was, it wasn’t very lucrative. Now they toil for Cornerstore, a dot com shopping site that bears a sneaky resemblance to Amazon. Less baby poop to clean up, too.
Junior (Samberg) is the best courier in all of stork-dom. He has earned the attention of Hunter (Grammer), the boss stork who is looking for someone to succeed him. Junior seems the most likely candidate. All in all, Junior’s life is going exactly the way he wants.
Not so for Nate Gardner (Starkman), a little boy who is bored and lonely. His Mom (Aniston) and Dad (Burrell) are both completely involved in their real estate business with little time for their son. He desperately wants a sibling to fill his time, preferably one with ninja skills. As a result, he sends a letter to the Storks hoping to get a new baby brother.
Junior gets his first assignment as Hunter’s protégé; he is to fire Tulip (Crown), a human girl (the only human on Stork Mountain) whose delivery to her parents was messed up by the psychotic stork Jasper (Trejo) so she has been trying to earn her keep for the storks, except that she’s something of a klutz. Hunter has had enough of her, but the tender-hearted Junior exiles her to the “mail room” where letters requesting babies are essentially warehoused, as the storks don’t answer those any longer. Of course, Tulip being Tulip, she accidentally activates the baby-making machine with a single letter – the one Nate Gardner sent.
Now there’s a baby to be delivered and Junior realizes that it must be done quietly or his career is history. So he and Tulip set off to get the rugrat delivered, while Nate prepares his house for the new arrival and the deliverers are chased by a pack of very limber wolves (don’t ask) and when Hunter finds out from Pigeon Toady (Glickman), a real stool pigeon, things are going to get even more complicated.
The tone here skews towards the whimsical, with occasional moments that recall the Looney Tunes which are part of the Warner Animation Group’s DNA. The Rube Goldberg-esque baby making machine is fun to watch in action and the Wolves who turn themselves into submarines and motorcycles (among other things) are also pretty clever.
That said the movie also goes for the Disney points by getting the family bonding thing going between Nate and his parents and setting Tulip up to find her “birth” parents. Kids today are also a lot more sophisticated; while they may not necessarily know how babies are born, they certainly know that storks don’t bring ‘em. In that sense, the story is a bit antiquated.
The voice casting is top of the line, and one must give the producers kudos for including both Key and Peele in the cast; they work as well together here as they do on their hit Comedy Central show, albeit with less scintillating material. In fact, things pretty much go the non-subversive route, although the anti-corporate tinge here might infuriate your average Trump supporter.
In any case, this is pretty lightweight material that will keep your kids occupied and likely not rile you up too much unless, of course, you tend towards the heavy capitalist philosophy of life. Chances are you’ll be drifting off with far better movies on your mind while you watch this bit of fluff with your kids.
REASONS TO GO: Plenty of whimsy displayed throughout the movie.
REASONS TO STAY: Plenty of cliches displayed throughout the movie.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some thematic elements and some kid-friendly action sequences.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Ty Burrell character is a real estate agent; Burrell also plays a real estate agent in his TV series Modern Family.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/23/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 64% positive reviews. Metacritic: 56/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Arthur Christmas
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Stray
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