Review: Open Season

UK Release: 13th October 2006

This boisterous inaugural feature from Sony Pictures Animation won’t give Pixar any sleepless nights, but it does have a simplistic appeal.

Co-directed by The Lion King film-maker Roger Allers, it’s a familiar, computer-generated eco fable in which domesticated grizzly bear Boog (voiced by Martin Lawrence) sees his pampered existence as a mountain-town tourist attraction cut short when he befriends a mischief-making deer (a fantastic Ashton Kutcher). In a hilarious set piece, the duo cause so much mess in a convenience store that Boog eventually ends up released back into the wilderness — three days before hunting season begins.

What follows is a predictable lesson about man’s destructive effects on nature, boosted by quick-fire banter, brightly coloured visuals and plenty of kiddie-pleasing scatological humour. The pace slackens in the second third, hampered by narrative clichés and some weakly stereotypical supporting characters, though it picks up with gusto for a final imaginative animal/hunter showdown.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate PG
Running time 86mins

Review by Sloan Freer

News: Jon Favreau

Very much second fiddle voicing one of the sidekicks in this week’s Open Season, following the success of his turns behind the camera on Elf and Zathura, Favreau is gearing up for his biggest directing gig yet with the forthcoming superhero flick Iron Man, due 2008. Although much can – and probably will – change in two years, the casting of Robert Downey Jr in the lead just last week is a promising start to what could yet prove to be a genuinely interesting choice after the recent glut of uninspired and insipid superhero movies.

News: Ashton Kutcher

The toyboy hubby of Demi Moore is going to be hard to avoid at the multiplexes this month, cropping up in the Kevin Costner-starring The Guardian, out this week, before appearing amidst the impressive ensemble cast of actor-turned-director Emilio Estevez’s much-anticipated political drama Bobby – which debuts at the London Film Festival on the 26th – about the assassination of JFK’s brother Bobby Kennedy.

He currently has no other projects in the pipeline, taking a well-earned break after the eight months of hard physical training he did before his appearance alongside Costner in The Guardian.

News: Martin Lawrence

Thecomic now best known for his Big Momma’s House flicks has finished working alongside fellow comedian Tim Allen in the new film from Van Wilder: Party Liaison director Walt Becker – which, amazingly enough, is also a comedy.

Scripted by My Name is Earl and Arrested Development writer Brad Copeland, the plot of Wild Hogs – due to hit our screens in May 2007 – reads like a not so subtle remake of 80s semi-classic City Slickers, as a bunch of suburbanites head out on the road to follow their dream of being bikers, but end up with more than they bargained for.

Amusingly enough, the fictional biker gang was originally going to be the real-world Hell’s Angels – until the supposedly tough bunch of leather-clad thugs decided to sue the Disney Corporation for making them look silly. Nice work, guys…