Zambezia

There is great Animation (Turbo) and there is good animation (Epic) and there is just about average animation.  Zambezia is unfortunately part of the last of the 3.  Just about average. Sometimes, I guess movie houses get it right by not releasing a movie in this part of the world.  But then, why go through the effort in the middle of year after the release? I wonder.

Tendai (Samuel L Jackson) is a falcon who stays way out in the wilderness where there is not a soul around - Katungu.  Not a soul except his son Kai (Jeremy Suarez) who is an extremely gifted falcon.  That does not come as much of a surprise because he has been trained in isolation by Tendai – who in his time was an ace flyer to put it mildly.  Kai has a very protected upbringing for reasons best known to Tendai.

An impatient Kai wants to explore the world beyond Katungu but Tendai will not have anything to do with it.  Eventually, when Gogo (Jenifer Lewis), a stork, crash lands onto their home, Kai is introduced the concept of Zambezia – a world where all birds live in harmony.  A world that is miles away from Katungu, somewhere close to the Zambezi river and hence the name.

Kai runs – or should I say flies – away from Katungu and eventually finds his way to Zambezia. He meets the head of Zambezia – Sekhuru (Leonard Nimoy) and his adopted daughter Zoe (Abigail Breslin).  He also gets to try out for the Hurricanes – the protectors of Zambezia – and his training with Tendai works.  All is well till the Maribou Storks decide to attack Zambezia along with Budzo (Jim Cummings) the lizard.

Zambezia is a movie made by triggerfish animation, a South African company.  Obviously, it is an attempt to market the avian side of South Africa.  It has won almost all the South African cinema awards for the previous year in the animation category.  But I am not quite certain if it is a reflection on Zambezia or the quality of animation and story in South Africa.

There is nothing new that you will see in the movie in terms of a story.  It is a combination of all previous African animation stories which were hits (Read Lion King).  The animation quality is actually average (as mentioned earlier). The only thing you can look forward to would be the voices of Samuel Jackson and Jim Cummings who does the voice over for almost all of the bad guys in the movie.

In all, I am not sure it was worth the effort, getting up early in the morning and getting squashed in peak hour train traffic to make it to a 9 am show @ PVR Phoenix.  But thankfully it was a watchable movie.  For you guys, you can catch up with it maybe on TV or DVD.  5 on 10 for the movie.

Watch the trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKwaGVMp8RM OR http://www.zambeziamovie.com/pages/trailer.html