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‘Open Season’ Movie Review by Maggie Scott
By Maggie Scott
At about the time the lead character is marooned in remote mountain wilderness, Open Season, for all it’s engaging comedy sketch style nerve and energy and its dazzling technology (Imax 3-D, included), will make you feel a bit nostalgic for the tranquil reality of Bambi.
Breakthroughs in computer animation are evolving so fast, and are so seductively amazing, that it isn’t surprising that it feels like the characters and the story of this cheeky work are primarily at the service of the animation.
A forest ranger (voice of Debra Messing) and the grizzly bear she has raised since it was an orphaned cub have come to a crossroads. Boog (voice of Martin Lawrence) denies he’s anybody’s “pet,” but he shows no signs of giving up the cushy life of bedding down (complete with tucked-in lullaby) in Beth’s garage and headlining Beth’s animal show.
Then, Boog crosses paths with a mule deer (voice of Ashton Kutcher) that Shaw, a “knuckle-dragging” hunter (voice of Gary Sinise) tried to bag. Elliot may appreciate the finer aspects of quadraped life, like coffee concoctions, Nummy Bars and vandalizing the local PuniMart; but, he knows instinctively that his place is in the forest with creatures like Boog.
After bear and deer spend a night of destructive delirium at the store, Beth heeds the advice of Timberline’s Sheriff Gordy and hauls the tranquilizer darted Boog and Elliot off by helicopter to a release above the falls in the middle of leafy nowhere. “My life is missing!” screams Boog, as he determines, after lumbering around in circles, that the “woods is no place for a bear.”
Even though he was thrown out of his own herd (he was known as “Smelliot”), Elliot knows better; but he offers to help the “Boogster” return to civilization. Routine perils, like the toxic spray of irritated skunks and the derision of industrious beavers, are just the opening acts for the dangers of hunting’s open season, which arrives in less than three days.
The “Incredible Mr. E.” and Boog go from facing territorial squirrels and curious bunnies to facing the maniacal Shaw, who believes the animal kingdom is on a course to “reverse the natural order and be masters of humans.”
Boog must join paws with all creatures great and small to give their enemies the “full outdoor treatment.”
Directors Jill Culton and Roger Allers pack the narrative with sassy, irreverent gags; and lots of action sequences to showcase the new-and-improved 3-D technology that put the images right in your lap. Rated PG for rude humor, mild action and brief language.
