Open Season delivers laughs

Open Season, an animated film featuring the voices of Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher, reverses the roles of the animals of the forest and the avid hunters of the city of Timberline.

Boog (Martin Lawrence) is a 900-pound grizzly bear that lives comfortably in the garage of Ranger Beth (Debra Messing), his keeper. Rescued from the wild as a young cub, Boog has no conceived notion of nature and the outside world. Boog is used to the bare necessities (no pun intended) - television, three meals a day, and shelter from the elements.

His world is shaken up when he rescues Elliot (Ashton Kutcher), a scrawny one-horned deer that narrowly escapes death at the hands of a ruthless hunter named Shaw (Gary Sinise). Elliot convinces Boog to step out of his garage and explore the world around him.

Elliot and Boog do just that - explore the city and have a blast. Unfortunately, the city is no place for a grizzly bear and a deer, who cause trouble in the midst of their fun. Things get so bad that Ranger Beth makes the tough decision to release Boog and Elliot into the wild.

To make matters worse, hunting season has just begun and Shaw is out for revenge against the duo. One thing leads to another and Elliot and Boog find themselves being hunted along with the rest of the creatures of the forest.

What happens is an Elmer Fudd/Bugs Bunny type scenario - just like Bugs Bunny always finds some way to escape Fudd's shotgun, Boog and Elliot rally up the animals of the forest to foil the hunters.

Open Season is the first feature-length animated film produced by Sony Pictures Animation, who created graphics for other movies such as Spiderman, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Zathura.

Sony is taking a bold step into the animated film world, which is already dominated by household names like Disney, Dreamworks, and Pixar. Do Sony's animated computer graphics stand up to the other studios that have been rendering CGI for more than a decade?

For Sony Pictures Animation's first venture into full-length animated films, the quality of the animated graphics in Open Season is excellent. The graphics are very cleanly rendered in great detail. The emotions captured by the facial expressions of both the humans and animals in the film are priceless.

The audio is also superb, with a great soundtrack and hilarious celebrity vocals. The animals all speak in different tones and accents, which make things even funnier. McSquizzy is the head of a clan of Scottish squirrels, Rosie and Maria are feisty female skunks with two snaps and a twist, Serge and Dini are shell-shocked psychotic ducks, Reilly is the head beaver construction worker, and Buck is a majestic deer dripping with contrived machismo.

The storyline, however, is not particularly compelling. To begin with, the setup between Elliot and Boog is strikingly reminiscent of Shrek - a lumbering, gentle ogre paired with a small, obnoxious donkey. In this case, Boog plays the outcast giant while Elliot is the annoying fast-talking sidekick.

Moreover, the outcome of the storyline is predictable from the beginning. Even though Boog spends most of the movie hating the forest and trying to find his way home to the city, the viewer can surmise that Boog will realize that the forest is his true home.

The humor is innocent, but at times so stupid that it becomes funny. Some of the slapstick humor is too funny not to laugh at, even for an adult. At one point in the movie one of the psychotic ducks steals a pair of dentures and literally bites one of the hunters in the butt.

Open Season is a great movie for children. Adults might find this movie a little less interesting. Then again, it's always refreshing to watch a movie for the sheer fun factor rather than for artistic merit.