Are you super into owls and owl culture? Do you like the band Owl City? Do you think Zack Snyder might be really be an owl? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you might like Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010), also known as Zack Synder’s greatest and most underrated achievement.
It’s a story about a young barn owl named Soren and his shitty brother Kludd. Soren is pure of heart, while Kludd is bitter, insecure and jealous.
One night, the two of them get kidnapped and taken to some kind of owl brainwashing prison run by a bunch of demented, fucked up owls. One of those owls is very attractive and looks just like Helen Mirren.
Which is no accident cause she’s voiced by the actual Helen Mirren.
Unsurprisingly, Kludd turns on Soren immediately and joins the bad owls. The rest of the movie is basically about Soren teaming up with a ragtag crew of pure-hearted misfits to take down the evil owls in an epic battle. A ton of owl-on-owl violence happens in this movie. According to a reviewer on Google named Bayley Mortlock:
"The combat is like a dogfight until the owls engage each other, then it becomes an agile ‘claw’ fight. Just the concept of owls fighting is a very complicated thing to visualize, but then making it very cinematic and action packed, is a very impressive feat."
Some really funny things about this movie:
The owls wear really intricate armour and masks that make them look like MF Doom (RIP the GOAT)
Owl City songs are blasting throughout the movie
The owls have vaguely Australian accents
There’s a large number of Ga’Hoole superfans who fucking love this movie and have been talking about how underrated it is for 10+ years
There’s not much else to say. Do I recommend this movie? Not exactly. Am I glad I watched it? Maybe. You need to be in the right mood. I recommend watching this with someone who will be up for cracking some good owl jokes so you can laugh through it. If you’re a parent desperate for content, give it a go with your kids.
Enjoy!