Migration overview – Star-studded household cartoon does not fairly take flight | Films | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Originality flies the coop on this family-friendly computer-animated journey from the flock at Illumination, who beforehand hatched Minions and The Secret Life Of Pets.

A child duckling borrows her wide-eyed cuteness from supervillain Gru’s youngest adopted daughter Agnes in Despicable Me, aerial acrobatics above a fluffy cloud line glide within the slipstream of How To Train Your Dragon, and a menacing chef mimics the fowl play of Aardman’s stop-motion farmer Mrs Tweedy in Chicken Run.

Regardless, director Benjamin Renner and co-director Guylo Homsy ship predictable, feelgood enjoyable within the firm of scaredy-duck Mack Mallard (voiced by Kumail Nanjiani), who frustrates his quick-witted spouse Pam (Elizabeth Banks) by refusing to stray from Moose Head Pond in leafy New England.

“I don’t want to miss out on life because you are afraid to leave this pond,” she warns him. To save the wedding (and supply the movie with an outlined narrative construction), Mack spontaneously agrees emigrate south to Jamaica with the household together with kids Dax (Caspar Jennings) and Gwen (Tresi Gazal) and curmudgeonly uncle Dan (Danny DeVito).

Colourful visuals soar however the glowing ensemble solid coasts alongside on autopilot for many of the 91-minute flight with scant dramatic turbulence to ruffle our feathers.