Migration: Feel-Good Familiarity

Illumination's 2023 animated feature Migration is to movies what comfort food is to eating. It looks like other Illumination movies, acts like other Illumination movies, and even feels like other Illumination movies, except this time it's about ducks instead of immature yellow scientists. It's a silly, entertaining, and largely unsurprising story about a family of ducks named the Mallards trying to migrate south for the winter, wildly missing their mark, and ending up in New York City, a story that faithfully and competently sticks to the same tropes and tactics we've seen in a million other animated features, making it to me as straightforward a comparison as they come to comfort food. And even if it's the same type of familiar family movie we've seen time and again, Migration is somehow still occasionally intriguing.

Even if the Mallards found pizza and higher taxes instead of paradise, Migration is nevertheless beautiful to look at, boasting incredible animation that makes the autumn colors of both the pond and the city pop like an electronic art gallery. I can't say that this movie exceeds the visual standard we've come to expect from a triple-A animated feature, and maybe I'm just getting out of touch with what modern animation is capable of, but Migration manages to do so much with its art style without ever veering into excess, taking on an attractive busyness. On the converse, its story is extremely matter-of-fact, which, kid's movie or not, doesn't do the film a whole lot of favors. It could be summarized as more or less a series of events happening one after the other, and it doesn't contain much of a rising action or a bigger problem the Mallard family needs to solve. These scenarios are nevertheless engaging, but I wish they paid homage to a story bigger than themselves.

Still, the world of Migration is populated by some incredibly dynamic and head-turning characters, including a pigeon named Chump with a Bronx gangster persona that is only the highlight of an extremely colorful supporting cast. And at times, it even shows itself to be a smarter movie than I had taken it for, using some smart instances of setup and payoff seemingly to prove it was paying attention to its own story, though this Migration admittedly doesn't do a whole lot more to go the extra mile, even if its short and familiar jaunt is an interesting one.

Migration doesn't do anything new or exceptional, but it does pack the same charm we've come to expect from Illumination features, and if you're in the mood for familiarity, then this is the movie for you. It's a feel-good family film, and nothing more, featuring a good-enough cast of main characters and an unnecessarily good array of colorful supporting characters, the type of flamboyant, identified-by-their-position-in-life players we've come to expect from animated features. People with high expectations of this movie as a whole will probably be disappointed, but don't go in looking for anything more than what we've been conditioned to expect by Illumination's other movies, and you'll likely be pleased.

As much as I wish that every picture were on the level of a Van Gogh, a sketch from a child can still be charming.

Migration - 6/10

Matthew 6:25-27