YELLOWBIRD
DIRECTOR: Christian De Vita
VOICE CAST: Seth Green, Dakota Fanning, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Glover, Jim Rash
CLASSIFICATION: PG
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes
RATING: HHIII
A bird orphan from an unspecified species has to lead a flock of migratory birds that have just lost their leader to Africa in the computer-animated feature Yellowbird.
Featuring somewhat blocky and studiedly nonrealistic visuals, this first feature from France-based animation studio TeamTO is a strictly-for-kids affair with a straightforward and often cliched story.
The titular hero (voiced by Green) literally sees the light of day in the first moments of the film, with a neat POV shot from inside the egg as it cracks to let out the little bird. No parents or others of his species are in sight, though the kid does strike up an unlikely friendship with a ladybug (Brown) who not very subtly tries to push Yellowbird to venture out of his comfort zone and into the real world.
“Tough just isn’t me,” he informs her, though the movie of course makes it its duty to prove the feathered antihero wrong.
In practically the next scene, Yellowbird finds himself beak-to-beak with the dying head of a family of blue-feathered birds, Darius (Glover), who entrusts him with the details of a new route to Africa that will help his flock avoid the dangerous “iron birds” (planes).
But not only is Yellowbird not cut out for leadership; he’s not even an actual migratory bird. Practically from the start, the young animal seems to confirm the suspicions of Karl (Rash), the cocky wannabe leader who feels he’s the rightful heir to Darius.
The screenplay too often seems to be under the mistaken impression that making a movie for kids means everything needs to be overly spelled out, especially by using as many short-hand cliches as possible. Of course Darius’ death scene – carefully modeled on Disney progenitors such as Bambi and The Lion King– is set not only in an abandoned church, but occurs precisely in the spot where coloured lights prettily fall through a rose window.
After a first stop in stinky Paris, the arrival of the flock in the Netherlands is similarly signalled by a view of a landscape full of windmills, though here it isn’t only Africa-bound Yellowbird who is lost, as the film’s gigantic, Dover-esque coastal cliffs don’t actually exist in the Netherlands, a country famous for being flat as a pancake.
The story of Yellowbird’s slow, obstacle-filled path to becoming an actual leader, as well as his growing interest in the pretty Delf (Fanning), is largely predictable.
There are a few – too few – exceptions, including the film’s clever way to obtain a happy ending and an entire sequence set inside a semi-submerged oil tanker that’s adrift in the North Sea. Though the storm-at-sea scenes are among the most impressive visually, this entire sequence finally feels more like an obligatory stop for an Important Environmental Message than an organic part of Yellowbird’s coming-of-age story arc.
– The Hollywood Reporter
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