La légende des Gardiens: Le royaume de Ga'Hoole

The looks of this feature was the absolute highlight of Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and so far the pinnacle of what CGI can do which is rare praise from me, because I rarely get such feelings by watching computer animation.

That's is both a blessing and a curse, because the story is a little messy and the characters are a mixed bag. Soren and Kludd are young owls about to learn to fly, but accidentally fall out of their nest and are captured by other owls to be slaves. From there on they go through many things with different consequences. While that's going on many new characters are introduced, and that's where they sacrifice quality in exchange of quantity. Some characters are annoying one-note comic reliefs (don't remember their names) and were not serving much of to the story.

BUT the saving grace was the villains! Oh god they were intimidating! If Disney's Maleficent and Frollo had a child, that would be them! Every time they're on screen I got the chills! Enslaving other owls because they view themselves as superior!

Even if it has a story with flaws and a mixed bag of main characters, I can without a doubt tell that this is the best looking animated movie to be released in a long time and set the bar unbelievably high for the rest of the 2010's. Don't know if a better looking movie has turned up considering the fact that we're currently at the end of 2018, but this is a tough one to beat.

Legend of the Guardians is director Zack Snyder's first attempt at a completely CGI and children's film while his other credits are all hard "R" films. So does the king of slow-mo succeed?

The quick answer is yes. Guardian's is a film that takes the liberties 3D and photo realistic CGI have to offer, like Avatar, to make a world and characters larger (or smaller) than life to let your mind be soothed into something beautiful, mystical, and most importantly, entertaining.

The story takes the classic yet reliable fable of good versus evil. To put it simply, an army of Evil owls who have obvious horrid intentions of ruling the Owl Kingdom must be stopped against all odds. The only creatures powerful and wise enough to defeat the army are the legendary Guardians of Gahoole.

The film follows main owlet Soran, voiced heroically by Jim Sturgess. Soran is kidnapped by the army of the Evil Owls. After being exposed to the armies wrong doings, Soran knows the only hope in defeating the baddies are to warn the Guardians. From there, the film takes flight into an epic adventure of action, companionship, and beauty.

Guardians is a rare treat in computer animated cinema. While Pixar is always reliable, Guardians is a very different film that strives to be an epic while appealing to a mass audience and succeeds in doing so. From the fantastic action scenes, to the articulate directing, spectacular animation, smart 3D, and top notch voice acting, Guardians is a film that will leave you mesmerized days after it's viewing.

Right from seeing the trailer in June, I had extremely high hopes for this movie. What drew me to this film was the animation quality and the animals they used; owls. Thankfully, the trailer did not reveal too many details about the story, I love going into a movie not knowing what to expect.

As for the film itself, I found it to be an extremely captivating and magical experience, a similar experience that I had not felt since seeing Avatar in December of '09. The animation was beyond top notch as each audience member bare witness to the immense detail of the owls and the environment. Each feather on the owls and each rain drop and spec of dust from the environment was clearly visible in the film.

The cast chosen for the film couldn't have turned out better than it did. The overall voice acting was fabulous and wouldn't have wanted any other way. The perfect octaves, expressions and moods were used in each line. Straying back to the previous paragraph slightly; most animated movies leave most people guessing the actor who plays the voice of a given actor. I, however, did not do this in this film. I was simply too immersed into the film to really notice.

The music used in the movie was beautiful and majestic. Truly epic scores of musical composure added so much to the film. You can tell the music in a movie is great when you never truly notice it, not to say it doesn't deserve its recognition. I merely mean that if you notice the music in a movie, it simply stands out too much and becomes a distraction. So having not noticed the music, I simply mean that the music became one with the movie and the experience.

In the end, I left the theatre with a very familiar feeling that I had not felt since I was a child. The feeling of classic Disney storytelling. The feeling of a masterpiece in the making. Legend of the Guardians is truly an epic film with a very rich plot and brilliant characters

The owl Noctus never gets tired to tell the epic stories of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole to his young barn owlets Kludd, the dreamer Soren and their younger sister Eglantine. Soren and Eglantine delight with the narrative, but the jealous Kludd gets bored and upset with the tales of the protectors of the Kingdom of Ga'Hoole. One day, Soren and Kludd fall out of their nest while learning to fly alone and they are kidnapped by evil owls to work for Metalbeak and Nyra. The owlets are divided in soldiers or hard workers in the Pelletorium collecting owl pellets to extract a fleck to generate a magnetic field. Soren befriends the elf owl Gylfie and they learn that the owlets are "moon-blinked" by the moon while sleeping and awake brainwashed, working like blinded zombies. They resist and sooner Gylfie's captor Grimble teaches them how to fly and meet the Guardians of Ga'Hoole to fight against Metalbeak and Nyra and the evil army of The Pure Ones.

"Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" is a very impressive animation. The story is only reasonable, with the eternal conflict between good and evil inspired in the Nazis in a scenario that recalls Avatar. However, the awesome quality of CGI and the voices (Eglantine is delightful) deserved a better story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Lenda dos Guardiões" ("The Legend of the Guardians")

I love this movie. It might not be 100% accord to the books but that doesn't matter, the movie is fantastic, now if you liked the movie, go ahead and read the books, you won't be disappointed.

If you young children are easy impressive, you might not like them asking you "but why is the pretty bird doing those bad things?" and stuff like that, just imagine an epic movie, you know: knights, kings, queens and battles, but for children and adults alike, it depends on how much your kids know about epic stories and the implications of war.

The visual designs are awesome and the music is beautiful, it is a great story.