Cheap Open Season (Widescreen Special Edition) (DVD) (Anthony Stacchi, Jill Culton, Roger Allers) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Open Season (Widescreen Special Edition)

Has some moments
Boog is a giant grizzly bear, living in the care of a park ranger in the quite mountain town of Timberline. Boog is the main attraction at some goofy nature show, that apparently the entire town comes out to see every day for some reason. One day while in town Boog meets a deer named Elliott, who is strapped to the hood of the hood of bad guy hunter Shaw's truck. Shaw being the worst stereotypes of "white trash redneck". If Disney put an ethnic character in a movie today with 1/10th the negative stereotypes they did with Shaw, the movie would have more protestors than the Vietnam War had. But that's neither here nor there. Elliott is tied to the hood, but not dead. Big bad evil Shaw didn't shoot him, just ran him over and tied him to the hood for some reason, without ever deciding to kill him. Boog, in a moment of pity, cuts Elliott free and that's where our adventure begins. <
> <
>That night, while Boog is sleeping soundly in his garage, Elliott shows up to spend time with his new best friend Boog. Elliott seems to be as accustomed to the domesticated lifestyle as Boog and they end up spending a night on the town destroying the local convenience store. This calls into question if Boog should be living the domesticated lifestyle or taken back to the woods. Boog gets one more chance and the next day at the nature show he blows it in a major way. Elliott shows up at the nature show and Boog destroys everything as the crowd is given the impression that he is slaughtering Elliott. It's cute. <
> <
>So, right before hunting season opens up (nice timing!) Boog is returned to the forest, with Elliott. Boog is determined to make his way back to town, along the way he and Elliott tick off every other creature in the forest, and then for some reason they are charged with saving every other creature in the forest after it's their fault for brining them all down below the waterfalls, and into the hunting territory. So the cute and fuzzy woodland creatures steal everything they can from some innocent campers and use their ill gotten gains to fight off the hunters in a wacky little battle scene. At the end of which Shaw has Boog in his gun sights, but Elliott sacrifices himself to save Boog. In a fit of rage Boog stands up to Shaw, and ties him up with his own rifle and sends him on his way, never to be heard from again. Of course Elliott is fine and the friends rejoice. The forest ranger, fearing for Boog's safety tries to bring him back home, but he has realized where he actually belongs and stays in the forest with his friends. <
> <
>The animation is cute and the story isn't bad. The forest ranger Beth is completely worthless. Shaw is a sick caricature, that wouldn`t be allowed in modern movies if he were ridiculing anyone other than "white hicks". Boog is done about as well as you could expect considering he is voiced by Martin Lawrence, who really doesn't have any personality and isn't very funny. Ashton Kutcher is actually the star of the film with a really great performance as Elliott. Patrick Warburton gives his typical straight face character to the leader of the deer herd and Billy Connolly is funny, as always, as the leader of the squirrels. The wiener dog has some moments as well. <
> <
>All in all, a cute movie that the kids will enjoy and the adults will have a couple laughs at, but like most all of the animated feature films of the last few years, it doesn't warrant any comparison to the real classics, and is completely forgettable.

Watching the special features helps boost your view of the film
In Sony Picture's first animated release a tame bear and a wild deer get together to learn about friendship and making it in the wild... that's the basic premise I guess. <
> <
>Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher provide the voices of the two main characters, while Debra Messing and Gary Sinise provide some of the human supporting cast. <
> <
>The film starts out a little rocky, leaning towards boring and pointless as we watch Boog, the bear waddle around and bask in the glory that is his enviable life of living in a garage and performing circus-like tricks in the local town. Then one day, as he's waiting in the back of his owner's Jeep, he sees a one-horned mule deer named Eliot (Ashton Kutcher) strapped to the hood of a truck, and in a moment of compassion, decides to free him. <
> <
>This is what finally gets the ball rolling. The mule deer makes his escape, much to the chagrin of the caricatured "evil" hunter, masterfully voiced by Gary Sinise, and from then on, the hunt is on. Eliot first tries to get Boog to leave his safe home in the garage and trash the local town grocery, and then sets himself out on a mission to get them both back to the comfort of the garage. That's all a bit muddled and confusing, but children probably aren't paying much attention to logistics anyway. <
> <
>Throughout the film there are some funny moments, a few that are laugh out loud funny, a few that might coax forward a slight chuckle. Overall, the comedy in the film is a bit lukewarm. The storyline isn't that amazing, although in the special features everyone from the producers to the artists claim that story is the most important part of their film... maybe they're talking about a different film. <
> <
>In the end, the caricatures of hunters as evil pillagers is a bit harsh, especially since the main character is a BEAR, who in reality would be eating the deer he has befriended, and there's a good message of friendship to be had at the end, if you look past the fact that the two main "friends" never actually seem to have that much camraderie. But again your children probably aren't paying that much attention. <
> <
>Sony has made an admirable effort at throwing their hat into the animation ring, and hopefully their future efforts will be a little more fully realized, but Open Season is definitely a good first try.