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A good writing team, a steady directing hand, some fabulous actors to voice its characters, even the now standard kickoff with a longish Minion morsel to get your 3D juices going – Migration has all its ducks in a row.
Till, it loses its way – during the long journey south of the Mallard duck family from its safe-and-sure pond home to the warm-with-promise Jamaica.
When it sticks to the birds, Migration has its heart in the right place, thoughtful about their differences, mindful about their fears, and watchful about the generalised misconceptions about them. Nanjiani as the overprotective Dad Mallard Mack, Banks as his exasperated wife Pam, Jennings as the enthusiastic son Dax, and Gazal as the fledgling daughter Gwen, have some good lines between them – enough to make us easily go along with the idea of them as a human family, but with wings and webbed feet.
There is even DeVito playing crusty old Uncle Dan, who hops along for eventually no reason at all, except who would pass up a ride with DeVito?
But then, to introduce some unnecessary menace, humans enter this picture, without the benefit of either a bird’s-eye view or a worm’s.
A chef with a twirling knife and a duck recipe as his signature dish keeps looming over the Mallards – whose relative size compared to humans remains an uneven mystery through Migration. But this tattooed hulk is no match, for one, for the vicious-talons-and-pointy-beak heron called Erin (Kane), whose intentions towards the Mallards remain maliciously ambivalent through a scary, stormy night – a part of which the duck family spends quivering on a frying pan.
Awkwafina is unsurprisingly delicious as Chump, a leader of one of those unfriendly neighbourhood pigeon packs, which everyone is only too happy to shoo away.
Key, on the other hand, is under utilised as Delroy, a macaw originally from Jamaica who has been caged by the chef, but who will obviously be the friend the Mallards need in their journey south.
But Migration keeps returning to the humans, and their buildings, and their cities, and their trash – nothing we haven’t seen before, nor propelling the story in any new direction.
That is quite a bummer from scriptwriter Mike White, who earned his repute with the astute The White Lotus, and who one could confidently say knew all about the birds and the Bs.
Migration movie directors: Benjamin Renner, Guylo Homsy
Migration voice cast: Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Danny DeVito, Caspar Jennings, Tresi Gazal, Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina, Carol Kane
Migration movie rating: 2.5 stars
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