Open Season (2006)
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Open Season Movie Review
Open Season is a 2006 animated family comedy film. It is Sony Pictures Animation’s first feature film and it was definitely a mediocre start.
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“Yuck. Yuck. Yuck! It’s terrible and wonderful
at the same time! It’s like freedom in a cup!“
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It follows a bunch of woodland animals who team up to fight animal hunters. We follow a domesticated bear who lives with his human owner, but afterwards goes to a forest and develops friendships with animals there. The plot itself is very familiar obviously, but not bad at all and it could have made for a moving, wonderful film had some other studio adapted it.
But in Sony’s hands it ended up being rather mediocre. Now, I did not hate this film. Not at all. But I also did not like it. That’s why a mediocre 2.5 rating is perfect for it. It does have some strengths such as the relationship between Boog and Beth as well as Boog and Elliot. The ending is also quite sweet.
However, the movie is otherwise rarely moving or endearing and it’s instead filled with so many annoying jokes that really ruined it for me. I am talking about garbage toilet humor and immature gags and jokes that only children could really appreciate. Yes, that means that this movie is good for kids, but it’s absolutely terrible for adults. And all animated films should appeal to everyone, in my personal opinion at least.
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Boog is okay, though Martin Lawrence’s voice is neither the greatest nor most suitable for animation. The same goes for Ashton Kutcher and actually all of the voices here. This is one of your typical Hollywood modern age animated flicks which rely heavily on famous actors and actresses to voice the characters and thus the results are beyond annoying and unappealing.
Debra Messing in the role of Beth is an exception as she sounds somewhat differently and Beth is the most likable character in the film for me. But back to Elliot, he is very annoying and so obviously Sony’s attempt to cash in on the success of ‘Shrek’ because his resemblance to Donkey in style and behavior is uncanny. The hunters are your typical bad guys and all of the animals are rather forgettable and overly abundant with the exception being those crazy, funny squirrels.
Open Season’s animation doesn’t help the matters either when it comes to the quality of the overall film. It’s quite unappealing actually as this very TV-like, cartoony and hard-edged style doesn’t look good for 2006 standards of feature animation. The character design is also bad as the characters do not look endearing nor realistic. Yes, the cheapest, most forgettable aspect of this film is the animation and that says a lot.
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As I said above, the ending is sweet. The beginning is also pretty good as it introduced us to the characters well and gave us a look into Boog and Beth’s life together. I wanted more scenes with those two as they were the most endearing parts of the film. But what we got instead is the bad middle section in the woods filled with over-the-top, unfunny for the most part humor and simply overwhelming action. That led to it being quite boring even for its short runtime. The score is definitely solid and moody though. But overall, this was a weak starter for this studio. Somewhat similarly plotted Dreamworks movie ‘Over the Hedge’ from the same year is so much better.
Open Season has a couple of moving moments in the beginning and ending and a solid score, but that’s pretty much it. The rest is mediocrity through and through. The animation is unappealing and rather cheap looking, the characters are for the most part forgettable and the story is typical. The focus on immature humor and overwhelming action didn’t help matters either. It’s in the end a very weak first movie for Sony Pictures Animation.
