My kids have been begging to see Open Season ever since the commercials for it started running, which was approximately six year ago, if memory serves. (Squirrels! Throwing nuts out of the trees! Several times during every show we watch!)
I’m not sure what to expect. The critics seem to either love it or hate it, with the scales tipping somewhat in favor of “Yeah, um, haven’t there been a whole lot of ‘animal uprising’ animated films lately, most of them better than this one?”
Newsarama’s Steve Fritz is willing to cut Open Season some slack:
It’s just what the world needs, right? Like there hasn’t been other films about semi-domesticated animals rediscovering “the wild.” Then again, there’s the old Hollywood saying if it’s been done before, and it was successful, do it to death.
Then there’s Open Season.
While I’m not saying you won’t see the ending coming long before you’re about a third into the film, that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to enjoy this trip.
But the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ Chris Hewitt isn’t feeling the love:
There’s a very pretty clearing in the woods, lit by an amber campfire, and the character design is distinctive, friendly and warm (the people may remind you a bit of the Wild Thornberrys). The music, including a couple of ballads and an uptempo rocker by Paul Westerberg, is also pretty.
But are the kids going to go for pretty campfires and piano ballads? When even I start thinking some woodland-creature flatulence would perk things up, I begin to have my doubts.
And the Austin Chronicle’s Josh Rosenblatt probably could’ve just said “formulaic” and stopped there, but instead wrote an entire review, concluding:
Open Season is little more than paint-by-numbers filmmaking, and it fails in the most important charge of any childrenââ¬â¢s movie: to transport its young and impressionable audience to a world where anything is possible, rather than to one where everythingââ¬â¢s been thought of already.
Dustin Putnam’s review at TheMovieBoy weighs in with a rather cautious thumbs-up:
“Open Season” is a pleasant time for the whole family, rarely pandering to little kids save for an inevitable fart joke and cooking up some fresh, slightly edgy humor for older audiences. Still, it is too slight for ‘animated classic’ status, and its only message outside of the value of friendship and working together is an anti-hunting stance that I applaud but some viewers might find heavy-handed. Mostly, though, the film remains breezy and good-natured. “Open Season” will never be confused for a deep movie, but it is a winsome piece of fluff that is easy on the eyes, the ears, and the heart.
So what have I learned? I know it’s a wilderness movie, not unlike a bunch of other animated wilderness movies, and it’s somewhat predictable, but not wholly unpalatable.
Also, there are apparently no fart jokes.
We may go see it, anyway. I try not to let flatulence (or the lack thereof) dictate my viewing choices. I’m mature like that.
Kevin Smith, sitting in for Roger Ebert on Ebert & Roeper, said something like, “if your kids like poop jokes as much as I do, Open Season will put a big smile on their faces.”