Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/221385
It's a Turkey Free Birds (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS As utterly underwhelming as it was, Free Birds (91 minutes) is charming enough to reasonably satisfy a family looking to eat popcorn and sit quietly in the dark for two hours. A turkey and his turkey buddy travel through time to eliminate turkey from the Thanksgiving menu. Unfortunately, to enjoy the film the family in question must work to ignore the dark, seamy underbelly of what only appears to be family-friendly. First of all, once the turkeys figure out they are meant for the slaughter they send Reggie (Owen Wilson) out to his death. Cute, right? Well, since Reggie ends up being the turkey with the Presidential pardon, everyone who stayed behind in the barn is obviously dead by the next day. His flock, his family, dead. And it doesn't seem to bother him one bit because he never mentions them again. Second, did PETA provide funding for the film? I have nothing but love for vegetarians. I even end up skipping meat for days at a time without realizing it, and I have a great recipe for vegan pumpkin crumb cake. But, the part of the film dealing with commercial turkey processing is just sad. The force-fed, imprisoned birds are ready to die, but they send little chick Jake (Woody Harrelson) out into the world to smuggle out three hidden eggs and restart the flock. And he fails, so I guess then the workers play catch with the turkey eggs in front of their helpless parents until they get bored with that and smash the eggs to pieces and slaughter the turkey parents. I mean, that part wasn't shown, but it was sort of implicit. Third, the idea that preventing turkey from ending up on the Thanksgiving menu wraps up the larger conflict of humans subjugating animals for food comes off glib. I am pretty sure I learned from the History Channel that turkey wasn't the main meat on the Pilgrims menu; it was deer. So it's okay to kill Bambi? Arguably the much cuter animal. And time travel introduces cheese pizza as a Thanksgiving tradition? Despite the fact that the people at the feast had no basis for reproducing the recipe —meaning the very next year they would be back on the prowl for turkey meat? The script quality was substandard. I know it's a kid movie, but that doesn't mean it needs to be so boilerplate. ParaNorman was a kid's movie, and it had a message. It also had style, something else that Free Birds lacked — for an animated film show in 3D, it was pretty one-dimensional. For lack of a better term, it was flat most of the time. There were one or two pretty cool images. The first time travel sequence is worth paying attention to, and the time travel machine itself is pretty nifty. The machine, called S.T.E.V.E., which stands for something I don't feel like trying to remember or find out, is voiced by George Takei. Also, Keith David, Colm Meaney and Amy Poehler get voice parts. I like them; I just wish they had picked a better film. Overall, there were moments of cuteness. The President's daughter (Kaitlyn Maher) is apparently on a constant sugar high interspersed with falling asleep mid-drool. I know it would have taken attention away from the majestic turkey, but I think the inclusion of the daughter in the rest of the movie would have firmed up the plot just a bit. The end credits run over famous art with images of turkeys integrated in, you might want to stick around to enjoy that. Now showing at Wynnsong HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandMarket Fair 15. comingweekly.com. Help us get 100 people back to work in time to make their holidays special and we'll Pay It Forward by donating to the Salvation Army in your company's name. For more information, call: 910-437-5959 24 UCW DECEMBER 4-10, 2013 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM