Simon Dillon reviews the film

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole clearly aims to be amongst the ranks of great animal stories like Babe or even Watership Down. Unfortunately, it is a much more mixed bag than the afore-mentioned classics.

Based on the first three of a series of novels by Kathryn Lasky, the story tells of owl brothers Soren and Kludd, who before they can fly are kidnapped by the "Pure Ones" - a kind of Owl Nazi Order led by Metalbeak, a villain clearly inspired by Darth Vader. In fact, thematically this is basically Star Wars with owls, replete with its own equivalents of an Obi Wan Kenobi character, the force, brushes with the Dark Side, a Death Star type weapon, a Jedi Order (the Guardians of the title) and so forth.

It's certainly a visually stunning tale, directed with considerable flair by Zack Snyder. There are decent vocal performances by the likes of Helen Mirren, Hugo Weaving, Miriam Margolyes, David Wenham, Sam Neill and others. But its let down by an overly serious screenplay and uncertainty in which demographic it is aiming for. Also, it takes some time to work out who is who (let's face it - owls look alike), and there is a serious error of judgement in having a friendly next door neighbour snake along for the adventure. A near photo realistic snake is not going to elicit sympathy from any audience, no matter what nice things it says.

Yet despite all this, I enjoyed this much more than I really ought to have done. Morally and spiritually it is fairly positive too, with Christian audience friendly lines like "just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't real." Some of the battle scenes are exciting too, though perhaps too scary for very young viewers.

All things considered, it's a bit of a mess, but an interesting mess. If you are going to see it at all, see it on a big screen.