Adventures In Zambezia (Wayne Thornley, 2012) Review

It's time for a review for a dubbed foreign film! YEAH! Everybody's favourite! I have no idea what this film is or where it came from but all I know is that.....I watched it. So let's review this thing about birds. I really should've reviewed Rio before this as I may bring up a lot of parallels between these two films but, hey, I guess I'm not done with 2012 films after all (the more the merrier!).

In the African plains, a falcon named Kai (Jeremy Suarez) learns of a city of birds named Zambezia after a run in with a group of Marabous headed by Cecil (Richard E. Grant) who vows revenge on Kai's father, Tendai (Samuel L. Jackson), after causing his brother's death. Kai escapes to the city where we manages to settle with the other birds living there by befriending Eeze (Jamal Mixon) and Zoe (Abigail Breslin). Things get worse when the Marabous team up with a lizard named Budzo (Jim Cummings) who wants to use them to reach Zambezia.

Good God the pacing is awful. Not just in act structure but just scenes in general go by way too fast with no time to stop and think "what the hell just happened?!". The opening is especially poorly done and therefore doesn't really give me time to get engaged with the characters or their dilemmas. Even the characters themselves aren't that great (except the Marabous...those guys are hilarious...and I do like Budzo). Eeze is very much just trying to cash in on the characters from Rio but isn't nearly as endearing. The cast is mixed though. Jim Cummings is easily the best out of all of them but Richard E. Grant is wasted here. Why is he even in this?! Why is it that a voice actor does a much better job than the cast which features the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Jeff Goldblum.

I will admit that the animation is nice but the textures and character models look really cheap. I know it's probably because this isn't a mainstream company but this was released in 2012...so it shouldn't really look this cheap. I'm sure this will be a forgettable film for most people since nothing has changed in my life after watching this. Not exactly a game changer and is therefore bland and quite cliche (and therefore predictable).

Adventures in Zambezia is a generic and cliche animated film that, at times has some nice animation and I do like some of the characters and cast (well...one cast member), doesn't really do anything game chaning and therefore doesn't leave an impact. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you are a huge fan of films such as Rio then it won't exactly ruin anything. It's just........ehhhh!

Verdict:
4.5/10
A below average animated film that is just...eh...