Anyway, so I saw this movie called Storks. Mind you, not a masterpiece of a movie. It starts off with stupid slapstick humor, and is abrasive in its pacing. A lot of stuff gets thrown at you, and it just isn't very elegant. You're introduced to Junior, a stork, who seems like a fairly normal stork, but apparently he's in line for an incredibly big promotion. He's about to become BOSS. I don't know what qualified him for a promotion, and there wasn't any buildup to it, but that's the information that suddenly comes out of nowhere, and it literally (I'm not misusing the word "literally," because there's slapstick, remember) blows his mind. Apparently he doesn't know what qualifies him, either. Too bad, you'll never find out. He's also unlikable, which can be said about pretty much every obnoxious bird in this movie.
There's a human girl called Orphan Tulip who lives with the storks because the homing beacon that was supposed to lead her personal stork to her family got destroyed. The storks detest her, because she's a quirky person, thinks outside of the box, causes a lot of mayhem with her crazy experiments, and has a heart of gold. It's a cheap two-dollar characterization, but hey, I found her adorable. Part of me wonders if I've been manipulated by her adorableness like all of the people who love the Minions, but I'll defend myself here. The writers seemed to actually have good intentions when creating her character. She may be the result of sloppy writing, but that's not the same thing as greedy by-the-number writing. I feel like the writers actually enjoyed writing her character, which brings me to the second thing that distinguishes her from the Minions: her dialogue is good.
The dialogue is probably the best thing about this movie. It fires off like a machine gun, keeps on going at a rapid pace, and rarely stops. People often talk over each other, interrupt each other, and quickly backtrack on the things that they were saying in order to adjust to shifts in the conversation. It's the type of dialogue that I would probably write, actually. It reminds me a little of British humor in that it doesn't stop to give you time to laugh, but it's still very American in its energy and over-the-top nature. Something about the humor makes me believe that this story was written by very sarcastic personalities.
Because of this sense of humor, I would say that Storks is tailored toward teenagers and young adults who will find this sort of bantering dialogue funny. After the credits were done rolling, I remember commenting that it had a lot of adult humor. That is to say, this humor feels like it was written by adults who didn't bother tailoring their humor for children. The humorous arguments about what it means to advance in the stork business, for example, and the jokes on parenthood, won't entertain children in the same way that it will entertain more mature audiences. And by mature audience, I don't mean that it's R rated. This film is solid PG. In order for children to really appreciate this film, they need parental guidance.
The concessions made for kids in this film are in its slapstick humor, of which there is a lot, especially if you count the animation style as being "slapstick." I don't particularly enjoy it. Most of it was stupid, but that's just me. It's like like it redeems the film like the dialogue.
The one other redeeming feature of the movie is that it actually has a nice moral. Getting promoted isn't the most important thing in life. It's also important, when you're a parent, not to become a workaholic and to be able to spend a little bit more time with your kid while he/she's still young. It's not profound or anything, but in a world where Minions is the second highest-grossing animated film of all time, I appreciate it for what it is. Like the dialogue, this moral is for adults. That isn't a bad thing, so long as you go into the movie looking for a more mature experience.
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