Film Review: Storks

For this weeks film review I have chosen a kids film, the animated adventure comedy Storks released in 2016. The film was directed by Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland and stars the voices of Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Anton Starkman, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Stephen Kramer Glickman, and Danny Trejo.

Before I go further I will say that there will be spoilers, so if you intend to watch the film and don't like spoilers wait to see the film first.

After generations of delivering babies to families all over the world one stork named Jasper (Danny Trejo) wanted to keep a baby for himself, he accidentally destroys her address beacon and gets exiled while the girl is adopted by the storks and named Tulip. The storks CEO Hunter (Kelsey Grammer) turns the company into a package delivery company instead.

Eighteen years later Hunter assigns top delivery stork Junior (Andy Samberg) to fire Tulip (Katie Crown) as she is a burden on the company causing the company to lose stock when she tries to help, his reward is a chance to be promoted to boss. Junior can't bring himself to do it so assigns her to the mail room.

Meanwhile Nate Gardner (Anton Starkman), a young boy with workaholic parents Henry (Ty Burrell) and Sarah (Jennifer Aniston), feels lonely and wants a younger sibling so he sends a letter to the storks. Tulip receives the letter and puts it into the baby making machine and creates a pink haired girl before Junior can shut it down, injuring his wing in the process. They agree to deliver the baby before Hunter finds out using a flying craft Tulip built, they crash and after escaping a pack of wolves led by Alpha (Keegan-Michael Key) and Beta (Jordan Peele) who fall in love with the baby, they reach civilisation. During all of this they bond with the baby naming her Diamond Destiny. In the meantime, Henry and Sarah spend time with their son building a landing platform for the storks.

Junior and Tulip encounter Jasper who has been following them, he reveals he only needs one more piece of Tulips delivery beacon and she has it. Junior reveals he was supposed to fire Tulip and she leaves with Jasper to find her family while Junior continues alone with Diamond Destiny. Toady (Stephen Kramer Glickman), a pigeon working for the storks, learns about the baby and informs Hunter who reroutes her delivery beacon to lead Junior back into a trap. Hunter fires Junior and sends Diamond Destiny to live with penguins. Tulip reunites with Junior and they go to save Diamond Destiny ending up cornered in the baby making factory they send millions of letters into the baby making machine, causing rapid production and distracting the storks. Hunter tries to destroy the factory with a crane but fails ultimately getting trapped and falling to his death.

In the aftermath the storks deliver all the babies to their families while Junior, Tulip and Jasper deliver Diamond Destiny to Nate and his parents. Tulip finally meets her family, and Junior and Tulip work as co-bosses of Stork Mountain.

Well this is an absolutely brilliant film, I loved it as did my wife and son so a firm family favourite already and easily one we would watch many times again. I had a feeling this was going to be really good from the premise of the film and the actors involved.

I really like the idea building from the myth of storks delivering babies and adapting to become about delivering parcels after an accident. This made the concept quite fun and made the situation that arose even funnier due to the normal having changed for those involved, so this was an anomaly. The ensuing travel is pretty tumultuous emotionally as you get the hilarious situation with the ingenious wolves, who can combine themselves to make things like a bridge, a submarine and an unsuccessful aeroplane, the bonding with the baby and dedication of Jasper which tug on your heartstrings and the sadness at Tulips reaction to Junior's confession which causes their separation. So while it is funny and causes a lot of laughter there are still the serious sides of their situation coming to the fore to remind you of what could go wrong and what they could lose. I especially found the part with Nate and his parents poignant as there are so many situations you hear of children not getting enough quality time with their parents, something i'm sure all parents are or feel they are guilty of at times. This is a particularly extreme situation where the parents never stop working then dedicate a lot of time to their child almost reversing however the impact is the point, Nate ends up feeling loved and valued while his parents seem open to the idea of another child. This is proven at the end when the family receive Diamond Destiny and all are overjoyed uniting as a proper family unit, there are various photos during the credits showing that they continue to spend quality time as a family meaning the change is permanent. Back with the stork side of the story and I found it brilliant how in the end they all stood up to the baby hating Hunter causing them to defy him and let him fall down with the packaging part of the company. This opens the door for them to go back to what they do best and deliver babies not having to worry about anything other than timing and safety, rather than stocks and profits opening the way for compassionate CEO's in the form of Junior and Tulip who are perfect for this role. It was also great to see Tulip meet her family as that brings full circle the situation that caused the initial issues.

When it comes to the actors I was already a fan of Andy Samberg, I absolutely love Brooklyn Nine-Nine and his character Detective Jake Peralta is one of my favourites, Kelsey Grammer and Jennifer Aniston I have enjoyed in every role I have seen them in and think they are brilliant actors. Being animated it meant all actors had to convey everything vocally and they all did brilliantly making everything come across as it needed to. Andy perfectly brought across all the aspects of Junior as his loyalty shifted from Hunter to Diamond Destiny and all the emotions that came with that, as well as the comedy of Junior's character making him easily the funniest. Katie Crown also did a brilliant job with Tulip really making you feel all the disappointments as hard as she does while also bringing a lot of comedy with her clumsiness causing hilarious accidents and issues. I really enjoy it when Kelsey plays a bad guy because he has a way of sounding almost evil when it is revealed he is bad but until then he sounds pleasant and nice, the perfect recipe for a voicing Hunter, I was prepared for him to pull this off perfectly after voicing Stinky Pete in Toy Story 2 brilliantly. The performances from all members of the family were also brilliant, Anton Starkman bringing across the disappointment and joy making you feel both sorry and happy for him, Jennifer and Ty Burrell perfectly display the change to compassionate and caring with the comedy that comes with it, one of my favourite scenes is when they knock down a chimney and comment of how badly built it was.

So overall as I said above, I love this film and it will definitely be watched many times again.

My rating for Storks is 9/10