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: 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…