Illumination Entertainment, hot off the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, spread its wings to bring a new original feature to the screen. Migration is an entertaining ‘air’ movie (as opposed to a ‘road’ movie) about a family of ducks who take to the skies to travel from America’s North East to the tropical climbs of Jamaica for the winter.
Directed by Benjamin Renner (the brilliant Ernest & Celestine) and Guylo Homsy (who has worked on many of Illumination’s big hits, including the Despicable Me flicks), Migration centres on Mack (Kumail Nanjiani) and Pam (Elizabeth Banks) and their two children, Gwen (Tresi Gazal) and Dax (Caspar Jennings) who have made a life in America’s North Eastern coast. It’s an idyllic existence but a little on the chilly side come the winter. Despite Mack’s attempts to provide a safe and secure home to keep out the cold and, more importantly, deadly predators, the two kids want more and twist the patriarch’s hand to head down south.
Aiming for Jamaica after coming across another colony doing the same, the family take to the skies to start their journey. The four of them have also brought their Uncle Dan (Danny DeVito) along for the ride, despite his initial reservations. Along the way they fly into New York City where they meet streetwise pigeon, Chump (a superb Awkwafina) and, in a hip Manhattan restaurant, the vicious head chef – named Chef – who is a cross between a pumped-up Bono and Salt Bae who wants the birds toasted into Duck à l’Orange. There, they form an instant friendship with a Jamaican parrot named Delroy (Keegan-Michael Key) – what are the chances – who joins them on their trip to lead the way back to his homeland.
There are other stand-out appearances – Carol Kane’s savage heron, and a yoga instructor duck named GooGoo, voiced by Britain’s own David Michell whose presence feels all too brief.
Although running at a brief 83 minutes, the film does, at times, feel like a slog. Younger audiences should lap up the visuals and likeable characters at the heart of the story, all brought to life with energetic enthusiasm by all involved, but parents, be warned, some scenes are genuinely scary. We’re talking about those peril-ridden restaurant kitchen scenes and that performance by Carol Kane who rather frights in her is-she-or-isn’t-she bad early turn.
Mike White and Renner’s script packs in enough set pieces and clever dialogue to keep the adults interested, too, but this is far from the classic animated features at the level of Minions etc. which seems all seem to be on a continuous loop in our house. Illumination’s first original feature since 2016’s Sing, Migration fails to reach the dizzying heights of that movie, or its sequel, or even come near to the charm of its most recent release; the billion-dollar-grossing Super Mario Bros. Movie, but there’s enough here to fill 80 or so minutes of family viewing time.
Migration is released on digital to buy or rent in the UK from Monday 4th March.
Migration
Summary
A decent enough flying fare which ultimately fails to reach the dizzying heights of Illumination’s previous efforts.
