Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

A classic epic fantasy about rebellion against a Fascist system. Full of slow-motion shots of cute owls flirting and performing kids pranks for a whole hour and a half. And unfortunately a whole lot of that fits in. The result is a pastiche that entertains nobody. Thanks to its brilliant audiovisual qualities, it is at least watchable and, thanks to certain scenes playing at regular fantasy without any compromises for the youngest viewers, this movie is bearable, but enjoyable... No, unfortunately not. (05.01.2011)

This film features the action of 300, the epicness of The Lord of the Rings, and the childish humor of all sorts of cartoons. However, you just can't get everything done in ninety minutes, so the originally planned animated event of the year remains only a technological treat (will there be an Oscar?) that works in HD for the eye but SD for the brain. I wouldn't take the kids to see it but the adults. Snyder was quite off with this one. I give it a weaker three stars. (14.12.2010)

It must be the first time that a wonderful trailer made me look forward to an animation film and the result could not be other than disappointment. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole would be very good if it was consistent. It’s a very dark fantasy where evil owls use an almost Nazi rhetoric on the one hand, but on the other, it’s a childish family movie with cute plush animals. Hmm. Visually, it’s beautiful, but I wasn’t a fan of the random switch between one mode and the other, though the darker passages were a lot of fun. The rating is 7/10, but in this case, four stars would be too much, so three. (09.12.2010)

Beautiful, elaborate animation, Snyder's sense for the visual aspect of the film and for action scenes reasonably interspersed with some pretty spectacular slow-motion versus a story seen hundreds of times, which brought nothing new, and a not very likable main character. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole is good to watch, a real feast for the eyes, which passes by quite quickly and doesn't particularly offend, I think. As family entertainment it’s good. But it also shows that it wanted to be something more - perhaps the cornerstone of a great feathered saga. And unfortunately it didn't give me that feeling. I wouldn't watch this cartoon again of my own free will. Three stars and a bit for only to the aforementioned positives, the music (Williams theme!) and the original dubbers.__P.S. If you want top animation and a great story, watch Rango. (03.07.2011)

Nice animation, and I liked the soundtrack at one point. But otherwise? NOPE. Maybe I'm squeamish, but I absolutely hated the owls fighting with each other. Plus it was such an infantile story, boilerplate characters, weird ambitions and goals, even the motivations of the protagonists and antagonists. I didn't like it. There are thousands and thousands of other and better cartoons out there. A weak 2 stars. (15.11.2011)