FRIDAY: Owls of Ga'Hoole

Louie's going to laugh when he reads this, but today I not only watched The Legend of the Guardians (Owls of Ga'hoole) but I watched it in 3D IMAX. I thought it was a pretty decent movie, despite being a fantasy story about owls. Perhaps seeing in IMAX contributed largely to my enjoyment. More about that later.

(Note: I'm capitalising IMAX not for emphasis but because it looks funny if I don't.)

Well, today was probably the most eventful day of my (pretty uneventful) holidays. I had my AMusA piano exam. It wasn't a complete disaster but my chances of passing look pretty slim. Now that piano is over, I can start studying properly for agriculture. I actually considered bringing my agriculture notes to the exam so I could get to it straight away but decided not to because that would be kind of sad.

On the topic of agriculture study, I briefly met Alex, Raymond and Lindy at Bicentennial Park. They had planned a bbq+ag study session. You can already see how that wouldn't quite work. I actually thought Lindy was studying when I first saw her because she was reading something. Turned out it was Harry Potter.

And now back to The Legend of the Guardians. It's about a young owl named Soren who is kidnapped with his brother by 'The Pure Ones'. Managing to escape, he seeks out the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, on the way making new friends, facing tests of strength yada yada yada. You can watch the trailer here.

Despite being quite different in subject matter, it bears resemblance to Zack Snyder's other movies (300, Watchmen) with his signature use of slow motion. Anyone who's watched 300 will realise what I mean.

 

Originally I thought it was just a device he used to help the process of adapting 300 almost frame-for-frame but Snyder seems to have really liked it and uses it quite a bit in Owls of Ga'Hoole. He uses it much more sparingly and I think that sometimes it works quite well despite seeming a little gratuitous. I raise this point mainly as a warning for Louie, who really hates it.

Complaints that the story is too formulaic and schmaltzy would be pretty irrelevant. It's true that a lot of improvement could be made to the script, but it'd be wrong take issue with the simplistic notions of absolute good and evil. We didn't complain about it in Lord of the Rings, so we won't complain about it here. And after all, this is a children's movie.

I will say that with this movie there's a greater focus on craft than storytelling. This movie, like many we see now is visually stunning. Perhaps the IMAX emphasised this. You can't really dismiss this as 'mindless CGI' or whatever because it takes a lot of creativity and artistry to get great cinematography, visual motifs, character designs etc. Most mainstream directors excel in this - Christopher Nolan, James Cameron. However, this film struggles with storytelling devices like pacing and rhythm. I thought this was most evident in the scene where Soren dives into a massive wave. A theory I have (and I can't really back this up) is that directors from times past or those who work with lower budgets have technical boundaries and see the limits of their craft as an obstacle to conveying their artistic vision. With big budget directors, there are fewer limits and they are more concerned with seeing how far out they can go.

Well that's all I have to say about that movie. On the whole, I thought it was pretty enjoyable and I'm glad I saw it. I was compelled to write this review because the movie's new so I can form my own opinion instead of imitating those of people smarter than me.