Animation for young audiences comes of age
On the visual front, Migration offers all the expected kinetic energy and stunning images expected from a film like this. The Mallards soar above the clouds, eventually stumbling on an urban jungle with breathtaking vistas - a stylized Manhattan. Mike White, who wrote the caustic, white-privilege satire The White Lotus, cleaves closely to the animated-family formula, doling out the requisite messages at the universally agreed-upon 17-minute intervals, but they're at least padded with creative imagery, if not an overwhelming number of laughs. Chuckles, but no guffaws!
A horror-tinged segment featuring a sinister heron (Carol Kane) is one of the early highlights - a moment when everyone's convinced that Mack was right all along - but the rest of the journey passes off smoothly. We know that the Mallards are going to escape the film's ultimate big bad, an ultra-trendy chef who specializes in duck dishes.
It's in the in-between encounters that Migration makes its more salient, emotional points. An angry city pigeon with a chip on her shoulder, Chump (Awkwafina), is a metaphor for the class and race divides that plague modern life. A colorful Jamaican macaw, Delroy (Keegan-Michael Key), who has been kidnapped, behaves like so many people stuck far away from home, spinning their wheels trying to get back.
Through it all, Renner and White keep the family together while allowing each character a clear dramatic arc that feels inevitable but never condescending. Mack and Pam make a committed, fully adult couple, doing their best for their children even when their philosophies differ. It's remarkably mature content for a family film carried by quips and jokes, which may be White's most significant contribution. And it's a final message parents taking kids to the movies will hear loud and clear.
