Review: “Storks” industrializes baby delivery

In the “Storks” universe, the former baby-deliverers now deal in delivering packages online through the business cornerstones.com. The plot gets into motion when a young boy named Nate (Anton Sparkman) decides that he wants a sibling and submits a 20-year-old pamphlet and writes a letter requesting a baby brother, mailing it off to Cornerstone headquarters. After reaching the HQ, the letter accidently falls into a machine located in the now shut-down baby factory. This causes the letter to be processed and through movie magic, out pops a baby from the machine.

After the baby is discovered, it is up to the two main characters — Junior (Andy Samberg), a stork who wants to become the new manager of Cornerstone, and Tulip (Katie Crown), a human coworker who was abandoned at the HQ after a failed delivery — to journey out and deliver the baby. Neither Junior nor Tulip are memorable. Junior just wants to show his boss, the overseer stork (Kelsey Grammer), that he has what it takes to become manager—a typical underdog story. The other main character, Tulip, is insignificant. She is just there to throw around a couple of hit-and-miss jokes, and to serve as the “peppy” or high-spirited person in the duo.

The plot, including the jokes, are lacking in coordination. Each of the locations in the movie feel as though they are just there to pause the plot and throw around a couple of jokes. Speaking of the jokes, once a joke is said, another immediately follows. It’s like the writers knew not all the jokes would hit so in order to hide this problem they kept using jokes repeatedly. However not all the jokes missed — there was one moment in the film where some wolves were introduced, and the way they worked as a team got a few chuckles out of me.

The voice acting is one of the better aspects about the movie. While watching, it was obvious that the actors had fun with their roles. When the mood was either lighthearted or heavy, the actors matched the tone. The film is also well-animated and very colorful. There are various colors thrown in parts of the movie.

To summarize, the film is generic with a pretty mundane plot and characters. The pacing of the plot moves rapidly and incoherently. Despite these negatives, the art and animation is the greatest aspect in the film. Families should be able to enjoy this movie, however if you don’t have kids then this film is probably not worth the watch.