In an age where computer-generated cartoons have become the norm, it takes more than a film full of talking animal shenanigans to win over an audience. Unfortunately, that is all that the clichAc plot of ""Open Season"" delivers.
Boog (Martin Lawrence) is a domesticated grizzly bear living a pampered existence in the garage of Beth, a forest ranger (Debra Messing). With the arrival of awkward, one-antlered buck Elliot (Ashton Kutcher), Boog's life as he knows it is completely transformed. Elliot's well-intentioned hijinks result in Boog being returned to the wild where he must learn the ways of the wild, from fishing for food to using a bush in place of his personal toilet back home.
Boog's unfamiliarity with the ways of the wild and his relentless journey to return to civilization cause him to put the other forest animals in dangerous territory, just in time for hunting season. Boog finally integrates himself into his new habitat through his unlikely friendship with Elliot and the team effort needed to defy the hunters and run them out of the forest.
Where other films geared toward children have gained mass appeal through their covert adult humor, ""Open Season's"" blatantly obvious attempts (references to squirrels and their nuts, for example) give adults a good eye roll in place of a good laugh. Even the jokes aimed at kids reach for raunchy over good, old-fashioned humor when Elliot is shown in the act of public defecation. Sadly, this could be the only novel moment in the entire movie, as few animated films have needed to venture into the realm of showing animal poop to capture their audience.
The plot does not pick up the slack of the lacking humor. Computer animation in itself no longer has the ability to captivate, so stagnant and overused plots have little potential of succeeding. It seems that each scene from ""Season"" could be found, granted in a less visually pleasing format, in at least one Disney classic.
Even the voices of high-profile stars fail to bring something special to this forgettable film. Kutcher's fast-talking Elliot could be the spitting image of ""Shrek's"" Donkey, while Lawrence's Boog fits snuggly into the stereotypical role of blacks in modern children's films. Especially in the world of animation where it is the voice that reigns supreme, star power can't be expected to carry a film. Remember Julia Roberts in ‘Ant Bully'? Didn't think so.
""Open Season"" does a fine job of mashing together everything that has worked in past films aimed at younger audiences. They followed the formula to a fault, resulting in a film with little vision and a complete lack of innovation. Because of this, it is by no means a terrible movie; it will no doubt receive chuckles from youngsters, but bad bathroom humor has never been a difficult subject when it comes to getting a positive response from children.
