DVD Review: Open Season

Children’s movies these days tend towards the patronizing, toilet humor that for so long, parents strove to keep their children away from. Nearly every year, we see only 3 nominees for best animated film at the Oscars, and usually two of those films aren’t very good. This year was more or less the same, only this time around, Pixar actually managed to fail us. And how long has it been since a Disney film was even considered among the best?

Children’s movies these days tend towards the patronizing, toilet humor that for so long, parents strove to keep their children away from. Nearly every year, we see only 3 nominees for best animated film at the Oscars, and usually two of those films aren’t very good. This year was more or less the same, only this time around, Pixar actually managed to fail us. And how long has it been since a Disney film was even considered among the best?

Films like Open Season are more of the same in the increasingly crowded, and yet not entirely exciting field of CGI animated films. Hand drawn fare is long gone, left to the masters of craft in Japan (for which they are rarely offered the recognition they deserve). Open Season failed on the usual children’s film levels though.

First off, we’re presented with a cozy little premise, what could have been a lovable character (if not for the horrific casting of Martin Lawrence to voice him) in Boog and the poorly developed and not nearly as funny as he needed to be, cookie cutter character of Elliot (equally miscast with Ashton Kutcher). The two have little to no chemistry, even in animated form, and their characters are rarely if ever funny.

The premise of the film, that a bear saved from the wild after his mother is killed and raised by a local ranger, is rereleased into the wild after he tears apart the town, is tired. A loved one is outcast to find his lot in life and learns that he must make do where he belongs. It’s common children’s fare, the idea of finding one’s place and stepping up to the plate, but the characters just don’t work in this is situation.

First off, there’s Elliot, dragged in by the ‘villain’ of the film, Shaw, the much maligned (and incredibly stupid) hunter from the woods who doesn’t abide by the rules. When Boog sets free what he thinks is most recent kill, Elliot, he begins to believe there’s a conspiracy against humanity by the animals.

The film flutters along aimlessly as Boog is dragged into mayhem by Elliot and eventually removed from the town because of his “wild” ways. The manner in which the film sets up its conflict is almost lazy, casual encounters protracted into gallivanting destruction and somehow along the way an unlikely friendship based on nearly nothing, other than that both Boog and Elliot are outcasts.

The film focuses on the two trying to find their way home in the wild, Boog intent on returning home, for a good portion, having other animals attack and ridicule the domesticated bear, and his own perspective waffle back and forth repeatedly. The result is a climax that makes you shrug with indifference, absolutely nothing having happened to surprise the viewer.

Open Season offers very little, if any exciting, new qualities to quantify it as a step forward for animated films. It recycles old clichés and children’s film plots and tries to interject a few toilet jokes and a very rusty, uninspired camaraderie between two unlikely woodland creatures.

As a film, Open Season does what it sets out to do. It entertains children. However, children’s films these days are expected to do more than that if they ever want to be rewarded for their efforts or remembered for years to come. A classic needs to transcend childish humor and recycled stories to draw in the parents and some day draw back the children when they’re older. Open Season is not one of those films. It’s only mildly entertaining, and in this case, that’s not nearly enough.

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