Migration (2023) – 3/5

Duck, duck, go!

„Migration“ is a co-production between Canada, France and the United States and if I add that this is an animated film, then maybe you guessed correctly already that it was made by Illumination, the company that is also behind the Minions / Despicable Me movies. If you have not made the connection right away, don’t worry because the moment the short film „Mooned“ that includes one character from the „Despicable Me“ franchise and a few Minions of course plays you will know what is going on here. But we talked about that short on another occasion. Now let’s look at the full feature we got here: The people who made this include some interesting names. While the film runs for only slightly over 80 minutes, there were two directors and two writers in charge. Benjamin Renner delivered in both fields of production and he is still mostly known for „Ernest & Celestine“ and has not been prolific in recent years. The film I just mentioned is already over a decade old and since then he only worked on one other film and also not on the sequel to the Oscar-nominated „Ernest & Celestine“, at least not in a key position. I hope he will do more work in the next years because what I have seen from him, I clearly like. His co-director here was Guylo Homsy and this is surely no surprise because he has worked as an animator on several Despicable Me films. However, as the man in charge of the direction, he only had one short film credit before „Migration“. And finally, Mike White was Renner’s co-director and he has written screenplays for 25 years now, but not really for animation. His big successes came very recently with „The White Lotus“ of course and surely helped him to get in with this film here too, even if I also liked what he did with „Year of the Dog“ way earlier for example.

But today we want to talk about „Migration“, a film that here in Germany went by the name or rather literal translation of „Out of the Pond“, so a bit different. My guess is that the word „migration“ here in Germany is too closely connected to human migrants of immigrants and if you are from Germany, then you know for sure that nobody here in my country is taking any risks to only create a loose connection between a (mostly) funny movie and such an important sociologically relevant subject. Dark times ahead. Political correctness is the death of all art in the long run, but let’s not go any further into detail there. Who they picked as voice actors for the two grown-up ducks in the German dub, however, fit the bill too from this perspective. Those two are not exactly linked to artistically creative achievements in film in general. The female is not even an actress. And Jorge from the model and dance shows, should he be famous? The kid from the Kerkeling film is on board too, but I felt that the young male duck, despite his big moment with great colorful wings towards the end was mostly forgettable. How was his head so green already anyway? Definitely an early bloomer. The mother did not add too much either. Overall, this movie was nonetheless a lot of fun. That is what counts. Most characters brought quality and entertainment. This includes the protagonist drake, the only one with some kind of character development as he discovers he should not always be so afraid of the unknown, but includes the sparrow-resembling daughter even more, who was just hilarious almost every moment she had an impact on the story or brought some comedic delight, like when she mocks her brother for crushing on another duck. The movie, however, starts with a bit of a horror story when the male grown-up duck tells a good-night story or rather bad-night story to his daughter about ducks from previous generations who stood up against gruesome herons (is the name of the bird species I think) and the mother has to intervene.

A little later, the ducks go on their journey already, even if it needs some convincing through special face expressions à la Puss in Boots among other things to make sure that father and uncle agree to join in. It does not take long then until they run into some herons indeed and there is constant doubt if those, or rather the female because the male is very lethargic, are evil and want to eat our heroes or not. Eventually, the twist is that they only want to save them from some big fish that tried to eat one or several of the ducks and the herons end up friends as well, even if they do not return later on in the movie. Maybe in a sequel. It does make sense though because as far as I know herons are only interested in fish when it comes to nutrition, so must be really starving to see ducks as their prey. So there are quite a few bird species featured in this film. A parrot plays a big role eventually as he is the one in charge of guiding the protagonists to their target destination in Jamaica. Pigeons show up too and they also become friends. Actually, the pigeon leader (I am still not sure if it was a male or female) has a good point on one occasion when (s)he says that (s)he is really mad because ducks get all the bread from people at the lake and now they even come to the city and steal the pigeons‘ food. This negotiation was maybe one of the best moments for the female grown-up duck, but it was also nothing special and this character was fairly forgettable and the attempt of the writers there to depict her as strong, reasonable, smart etc. What all female movie characters have to be like these days was slightly embarrassing. Luckily, the good was still far more frequent than the weak here. The antagonist had an interesting design with his hair and pretty special looks. Of course, it was maybe too big of a coincidence that he showed up there again at the paradise-like farm that was really deceiving of course and maybe you guessed that too like I did. The bigger suspense was maybe where they would end up there on one occasion in what turns out to be New York as you will find out if you listen closely as Queens is mentioned, but you don’t see the Statue of Liberty or so. But back to the moments of happiness in this seemingly perfect location much later: It was all too perfect. I initially thought those were chickens, but truth is probably that it was either geese or wild ducks that simply had white feathers.

In any case, those ducks joined our heroes then in the trip to Jamaica and the group was really big. Quite the challenge eventually to get there with everybody. Seeing the new companions tumble down from exhaustion when they take a break was funny. Also the sound effect I think. Another inclusion that did not do too much for me was the two main characters‘ dancing, but not everyone can be a winner, so it is all good. Maybe this was one reason why they included the aforementioned Jorge Gonzalez as a voice actor here. I am sure he liked those scenes more than I did. By the way, he voiced the parrot that looks-wise reminded me a bit of the one from Aladdin. Been a while since we had red parrots in animation if you think about Rio and stuff. But yeah, let’s go on with some brainstorming now for the rest of the review as the end gets closer: The uncle I mentioned only briefly, but he was fun too. I guess they did not really have ideas what to add to him in the second half, but still I liked him, even in those moments when he was simply sleeping like at the herons‘ place or his sleeping position I should rather say. Speaking of herons, you see it is a good year for them (animation) film-wise apparently or well, the Miyazaki film was already from a few months earlier, but you know what I mean. Another inclusion I liked was the depiction of the birds in the air almost at the end. The colors there were really majestic and spectacular. Completely away from that, there was one scene when the bad guy tries to catch the ducks and something that one of the employees of his restaurant does gets in the way of him doing so and I wonder if that was a mishap by said employee or intentionally because the latter was siding with the ducks or just trolling his boss. What is safe to say is that said employees are definitely not henchmen. They were just there, but not opposing our heroic duck family.

The message of the film that is visible from the start pretty much is that you sometimes need to be courageous and step out of your comfort zone, explore new ways of life and we do not only have to make a geographic connection there, even if this is what it is all about in the movie story-wise. I liked it. Nice execution without being too much in your face. So yeah, all in all this film was a success form my perspective and I give it a thumbs-up, even if I would not say that it was a superb movie. But good chance it has to end up among my top5 animated movies from 2023. I would watch a sequel if they ever make one. The number of viewers in my screening surely surprised me. I did not expect this many in the audience, so it is a good indicator that maybe this will not stay the only Migration film. However, the ending and what we see there during the closing credits almost takes away a potential plot for the sequel. Would have been amazing to see a follow-up that deals with ducks and penguins. Definitely two of my favorite birds and maybe I was also so curious about watching this one because I have had a special connection with ducks since my childhood as going to the nearby lake to watch them where there were really many (or still are to this day) is a memory I will always appreciate fondly and I could never harm any duck whatsoever. This is all. Go see this film if you like animation. Its looks are really nice, also the landscapes around the autumn-like landscapes surrounding the lake at the beginning and of course also in the end in Jamaica. Oh and just one more thing: The movie poster for this film is really cool too where you see all the ducks outside and better than the one on imdb with all these yellow rubber ducks it is I think that were not even part of the film at all.