The most important thing to note about Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, apart from its insidiously long title, is that it is rated PG.
This means parents should be forewarned. While children are still allowed to enter this film without an adult accompanying them, that’s not necessarily the best idea. It ranks in the same category as the Harry Potter and Twilight films. Do your research at www.albertafilmratings.ca and use your discretion here. This is an incredibly mature film disguised as a cute kids’ flick about a young male owl that grows up against adversity to discover his destiny.
Soren (Sturgess) is a young barn owl at first fledge who is kidnapped with his brother Kludd (Kwanten) and taken to a work camp run by Tytos owls Nyra (Mirren) and Metalbeak (Edgerton). There are dozens, if not hundreds, of other young owls there as well. The new ones go through a brainwashing process called moon-blinking in order to make them more placid and compliant within a kind of cult whose objective is racial purification through ethnic cleansing. In the first10 minutes the movie already covers some incredibly scary concepts — being a child taken against your will and then being forced into slavery, being subjected to mind control and then operating as a mindless agent of evil, a holocaustic automaton.
Still sound like a kids’ fantasy adventure movie? Naturally, Soren rises up and escapes with the help of Grimble (Weaving), one of the camp’s guards who still has his senses and surreptitiously works against his captors. With a young girl owl named Gylfie (Barclay), he sets off to find the island of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree where the legendary Guardians live. The reclusive owls are the last and best hope to win the war against the Tytos. But young Soren has a sturdy gizzard that helps to guide him in flight and in battle.
This movie is extraordinarily well done, especially when you consider this single 90-minute film covers the territory of three novels in the original book series upon which it was based. Can you imagine one complete Lord of the Rings movie at that length, let alone any individual one that made it to theatres? Granted that saga had a much more complex and convoluted storyline with 100 times the number of characters but this is still a grand feat. It is an epic trilogy in one fell swoop, killing three birds with one stone. This condensation means the plot progresses quickly with lots of adrenaline-fuelled action to boot.
Adding to the grandeur of Ga’Hoole is how immensely beautiful it is to watch. Computer generated animation has come a long way since the primary colours of Toy Story 15 years ago. The Australian production company Animal Effects has broadened the palette considerably to achieve the extraordinarily subtle tints and hues of the feathers of many species of owls. The visual pleasure is truly satisfying but it does not distract from the brutal ugliness of the subject matter. If parents want their child to get a social studies lesson in dictatorships and the origins of war then seeing this movie is a good start. It might be wise to attend with your child though and have a good discussion afterward too.
