Soren (Jim Sturgess) and Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) are young brother owls who’ve been kidnapped one day while they were out practicing branching.  They are taken to the ‘Pure’ ones, who are under the control of Metalbeak (Joel Edgerton) who is using them for his revenge plan against the Guardians of Ga’Hoole.

We’re filled in on the back story to this film during the first few minutes where we see Soren telling his younger sibling an exciting tale of the Guardians saving the day and keeping Metalbeak at bay from enslaving the owl species through his ideals of the strong rule over the weak.  This is great, because too many films with this kind of prologue takes too long to introduce these elements, however here Snyder takes us through the introduction in such a way that never feels rushed so that when the story really begins to get going we don’t feel lost in any way.

What makes this movie work is that it’s the exact same movie you saw as a child just transformed into owls with 3D flying sequences.  So this is the way to introduce your child to all those fantastical tales (like Star Wars).  The film knows that it’s pretty derivative when you think back to all the classic fantasy films, however it utilizes the new technology to its advantage to see it in 3D.  As a 3D film I wonder if I like it more than the film that I saw earlier this year, How to Train Your Dragon, which was the film that reminded me that 3D can be great in the cinema.  As much as I’m not looking forward to the converted 3D that I’ll have to suffer through with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1 I do see that movies in 3D can be more than a gimmick and can make the movie more entertaining than if I saw them just in 2D.

The voice acting in the film was brilliant.  I didn’t recognize one of the voices there were coming at me from these feathered night creatures.  I started to the film reading off a lot of the credits which included Helen Mirren, Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving and Jim Sturgess and after the first half of the film was over I stopped trying to figure out which character was voiced by which actor.  I continuously found myself just enjoying the characters rather than just saying things like “classic Weaving” when he would deliver an evil/enlightening monologue or two, which is great from a viewers stand point.

My biggest problem is that the film was obviously trying to set up a trilogy-esque story, like many of the fantasy classics out there, with the characters of Soren and Kludd.  With the brothers who go the different ways, one is on his path of becoming a Guardian and the other believing that the noble life isn’t the life for him and he must use his strength to oppress the weak.  So when we see all those moments where the movie tried to encapsulate the story in the one film, but towards the end of the movie it feels like they just took a last minute decision to reopen a couple threads that were basically tied off already (including the Kludd storyline I felt).

The movie has a few sloppy story points, but overall is a fun movie that parents will enjoy taking their children to.  It’s a film that you need to see in the theatre (or maybe just upgrade your home theatre to 3D like Stephen Fry recommends) because the 3D is just brilliant.

IMDB says 7.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 48%

I say 7.0/10