If there's one thing I took away from Migration (2023), it's that Illumination has finally matured as an animation studio. Sure, just like there's a Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks "style," Illumination has a look to the characters in their movies (especially the humans) that makes them immediately distinguishable. In Migration, there was less of that distinctive style, but the freedom to match what the movie needed to tell its original story about a family adventure. If this is what taking risks looks like, then I think it was a successful foray into more original fare.
The voice acting was superb, mostly because there were only a few characters whose voices were immediately obvious who they were. I do wonder if director Benjamin Renner's previous work, Ernest & Celestine (2012), helped shape some of the voice acting decisions, because they certainly fit the characters well. The animation also feeling closer to a 2D traditionally animated film while still being completely 3D CGI was a nice touch that set it apart from other animated movies (but not quite as extremely as Into the Spider-Verse (2018) or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) have done).
And while the plot wasn't anything to fly home about, the core lessons it was trying to get across were solid enough for any kids watching to understand what it was trying to say. Even the more childish gags that are common for this kind of film were fairly rare, which felt refreshing considering the studio this film came from. Of course, this also was helped by a pretty good villain that drove most of the movie's later conflict. Kids might be scared at a few points, but my daughter seemed to enjoy it overall.
A cute family adventure from Illumination, I give Migration 3.5 stars out of 5.
