Adventures in Zambezia

This is a story of a young and disobedient falcon who left his father and their nest in the isolated desert to challenge the mysterious bird-city Zambezia.

I watched this with two kids, 4 and 9, both liked it a lot and so am I. It's pretty dynamic and funny, colorful (beautiful nature, birds, animals) and has nice and lively soundtrack. Storyline is easy to follow, not too complicated for children and not too boring to fall asleep in the middle for grownups. Characters are OK, although no really memorable ones (don't remember the kids to discuss anyone on the way back from the cinema). As an extra plus I see the absence of hidden context or jokes for adults.

Overall, I think it's underrated and surely worth at least a single watch in the cinema or at home by all of your family.

8.2 of 10. The second awesome film of 2012 Samuel L. Jackson is in (as a key character voice), and it's very different from Django Unchained, although there's an underlying common bond in working together in each film.

Besides making you want to pet birds, maybe not the vulture-like marabous, the animation doesn't get nearly enough credit. The lizards are bordering on life-like and the waterfall and mist (not to mention sand and other colored dusts) simply has never been better outside of actual filming of waterfalls. Even the bird poo is as gross as in real life.

As for the character voices, I was concerned that Nemoy and Jackson would dominate the audio and distract from the story. Instead, they both give surprisingly understated performances where you need to listen closely to identify them. Even Goldblum deserves credit because I still don't know which character he voiced.

Dear Oscars/Academy, you failed us again. Do any of you actually watch animations/cartoons?

I was not expecting to like this movie very much but thought I would give it a go. Turns out I throughly enjoyed this movie as it had a great storyline was beautifully colourful and had a good amount of heart.

I'm not sure when people starting basing a movie's likability on it's level of animation/CGI special effects but they are missing out when they pick every little technical flaw apart. I didn't notice any problems with the animation because I was too busy allowing myself to enjoy the movie. Silly me not documenting every flaw of every movie in a notebook.

I definitely recommend this movie if your looking for a fun way to fill your time. But please leave your jaded adult world views and expectations at the door and just enjoy.

'Zambezia', the new south African animated film is an obvious low budget animated feature, you wont see any ads on TV, and the animation looks 10 years old, but that's no reason to straight away hate on Zambezia, it's not one of those dubbed foreign trashy animated movies which have no single thing put into them apart from making money. Zambezia has a story, a plot, good characters. When it wants you to take it seriously you will take it seriously. When it wants you to laugh you will not be sitting there rolling your eyes.

The movie is another one of those typical 'parent letting go of child' kind of animated movies, which is possibly the most cliché type of character development seen in any kids movie. But I guess there's good reason for the situation, it just doesn't have it thrown in to make a plot (hint hint Ice Age 4). But I thought the characters were good, not really that deep, but good, nothing to really complain about.

The movie has a nice soundtrack, and I thought the visuals of the landscape were absolutely brilliant. The humour isn't bad, with a lot of jokes that hit. Nothing laugh out loud funny of course, but still much better than the humour in 'Ice Age 4'.

There are some obvious similaries to 'Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole' and possibly the movie was made with the intention to 'duel' Rio, but it still has originality, the bad guy for one, is new, and intimidating enough to be a good villain.

Zambezia is a perfectly good movie for kids and adults, there's nothing wrong with it at all really, and it actually kind of surprised me. I think this movie takes much more risks than 'Ice Age 4', 'Rio', and many other current animated films.

Go and see it, have a good time.

You can tell if a kids movie just hit the mark, if the young viewers shout "We want to watch this again", immediately after the end credits start to roll. "Zambezia" is a very sweet, well crafted and engagingly told south-African animation, that works very well with its target audience, tells an ambitious story; and ends up being hold back by its budget restrictions.

Director Wayne Thornley aims high with his home grown south-African story of the young hawk Kay, who lives alone with his father at the top of a gorge of the Zambezi in an otherwise deserted landscape. When Kay abandons his home to live in the bird's big city of "Zambezia", where he learns the truth about his origins and has to find his own strength, parallels to "The Lion King", "Finding Nemo" and other genre classics become obvious.

To my surprise, Zambezia fits surprisingly well into the shoes of its predecessors. The animal characters are developed very nicely and with attention to detail. Clearly the creators of this movie know their subjects very well. I always like, when animal characters like these are still rooted in their natural behavior, something "The Jungle Book" or the mentioned "Lion King" do all so well (while annoying movies like the "Madagascar"-franchise don't seem to get this right).

The south-African landscapes are stunning. It is a joy to follow Kay and all the other birds of prey as they race over rivers and waterfalls, through gorges of stone and wood at breakneck pace. These visual treats are accompanied by a simple story with an important message ("Stronger together"), both transported in a very engaging way for the young viewers. The movie is funny and exciting and the main villain is very creepy, so there is a lot to enjoy for the kids.

So, that Zambezia ultimately cannot quite reach the heights of its paragons, has nothing to do with bad story telling or movie making. The creators clearly had a vision of what they wanted to accomplish and it only seems, they have been held back by limited resources. They are some plot points, that would have deserved greater development, such as the relationship between Kay and the female kite "Zoe". Though the story paces along at falcon speed, I would have loved to see some story arcs told with more patience. But these are adult complaints, that surely don't diminish the fun of younger viewers.

Zambezia is a certainly underrated, definitely ambitious and well crafted piece of animation, that deserves to be given greater attention. If you need to kill an afternoon at home with your kids, this one is well worth the time.