An unsuspecting couple have their identities stolen. A signature is forged and an order is placed for the most priceless of products. An incompetent picker working for a multi-national corporation, which values profit over people makes a catalogue of errors and sends the wrong item to the wrong address at the wrong time. Sound familiar?

The only difference being that the miscreant is a ten-year-old boy by the name of Nate (Anton Starkman) who as a lonely only child to workaholic real estate agents Sarah and Henry “A house is not a home without a” Gardner (Jennifer Aniston and Ty Burrell) has dispatched a written request for a male sibling with ninja skills to Cornerstore, a package delivery firm run by strict disciplinarian and serial robin redbreast abuser Hunter (Kelsey Grammer), which used to deliver babies but was forced to restructure after one of their staff members Jasper (Danny Trejo) “went crazy” – technical term for developed a close bond with a product resulting in “damaged goods”.

Hot on the heels of their inaugural success The Lego Movie (or should that be quick out the blocks?), Warner Animation Group and RatPac-Dune Entertainment have joined forces with Stoller Global Solutions whose boss is none other than Storks writer and co-director Nicolas Stoller whose long list of credits includes The Muppets and its sequel Muppets Most Wanted.

Joining him on the clapperboard is Doug Sweetland, an experienced animator in blockbusters such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo whose Oscar-nominated short Presto was shown in cinemas prior to the wonder that is Pixar’s WALL-E. The reason I name drop is to show that these guys know their stuff and have a proven track record in the field of animation. The reason I include the last remark is that this film, though enjoyable, falls short of the mark.

The main fault, I think, is that neither of the two main characters are children and this limits the cutesiness, playfulness and innocence, which is so appealing in all of the animations previously mentioned: Junior (Andy Samberg) is a top delivery worker for Cornerstore whose main drive is career progression than compassion; and “Orphan” Tulip (Katie Crown) is an 18-year-old woman who has spent her entire life quite literally with her head in the clouds on Stork Mountain after her homing beacon was damaged by Jasper.

Photo: storksmovie.com
Photo: storksmovie.com

Similarly, the worlds in which the storks and humans operate are too cold and too adult and too distant: talk of corporate restructuring, factory sweatshops and real estate transactions hardly lend themselves to gag-a-minute slapstick. And though many of the animation sequences are clever and sophisticated – the standouts being a suspension bridge made of wolves, a conversation between Tulip and a litany of alter-ego’s differentiated from one another by a change in hairstyle and the funniest of all a face-off between Tulip and Junior and a colony of penguins, which is conducted in complete silence so as not to wake the baby – many of them are too clever and sophisticated (not to mention fleeting) for younger audiences.

In fact, it took well over half an hour before I genuinely experienced an “aw!” moment when a pack of wolves led by Alpha and Beta (Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele) withdrew their fangs from the baby’s jugular and started licking her cheeks in a rare show of paternal adoration. And on the subject of adoration, the three characters who genuinely sought love and affection – Nate yearning for a ninja-fighting brother, Tulip pining for her unknown parents and the overprotective giant stork Jasper looking to make amends for breaking Tulip’s homing beacon – are not fully explored and their plights remain isolated rather than interconnected.

Which is not to say that there is not much to like, because there is. It’s just that the emotional buttons are not pressed as often and hard enough as I would have liked. Though the ending produces a gulp in the throat the size of a golf ball as all ends, as expected, happily ever after. And as for the answer to the million dollar question of “Where do babies come from?”, screenwriter Nicholas Stoller takes the fifth. Though judging by the title of his next creative adventure, methinks he might be onto something: Captain Underpants.

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Peter Callaghan
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