295) Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

295) Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010) Dir: Zack Snyder Date Released: September 2010 Date Seen: September 19, 2010 Rating: 1.75/5

There's so much that bugged me about this slick but hollow--heh, hollow--attempt at meta-recontextualizing a formulaic story so that it seems archetypal. In general: 

• Didn't get the sense that the way the brothers' relationship changed was anything more than a weak attempt at lending the film's cynical bildungs roman plot more heft.
• "Come into my hollow" is this movie's flamethrower ejaculate
• Snyder's fascination with the sociological aspects of the owls' lives--pellets! Moon-blinking!--was quaint.
• Slow-motion overload, more so than his other films even. It's surely a sign that Snyder thinks that his slow-mo abuse is stylistic shorthand that might dupe viewers into thinking that they too can recognize a would-be auteur's calling card. 
• Snyder's sense of space here is good, even all of the landscapes' proporotions were outrageously exaggerated. The scene where the two brothers are initially separated is so hard to make out, largely because Snyder doesn't know how to compensate for his virtual sets' gigundo size.