Migration, from Illumination Animation

If you watch enough Food Channel, you know the secret to cooking duck is scoring the skin to properly render out the fat. The characters of this new animated family film would surely want you to know that. They have duck a l’orange on the mind after crashing a celebrity chef’s kitchen in Benjamin Renner’s Illumination-produced Migration, which opens Friday nationwide.

Initially, Mack Mallard was dead set against migrating from his family’s comfy pond, but his wife Pam wanted some excitement, his teen son Dax has a crush on a migrating girl-duck, and his duckling-daughter Gwen is easily influenced by her mom and brother. Much to everyone’s surprise, the Louie De Palma-like Uncle Dan agrees to come too.

Since this is their first migration, Daddy Mack is not hip to many of the dangers, including signs of bad weather. As a result, they Mallards find themselves sheltering with an old couple of predatory herons and take a dangerous detour through the mean air space of Manhattan. Fortunately, Chump, the leader of a gang street smart pigeons takes the family under her wing. They need an exotic bird to lead them to Jamaica—and there happens to be one caged up in a trendy restaurant.

Admittedly, Migration is like a lot of other family films, like Rio and maybe half a dozen other bird movies, but a lot of things are like many other things. In this case, Renner and the animators keep the energy level cranked up and earns a decent number of laughs. It is professional grade animation, especially the scenes of birds in flight, which look terrific on the big screen.

Danny DeVito is consistently amusing as lazy and wheezy Uncle Dan. In a way, Migration represents a small Taxi reunion, since Carol Kane gives voice to the creepy backwoods Erin the heron. Awkwafina also delivers some realistic New York attitude as Chump, but Keegan-Michael Key lays on the accent distractingly thick as Delroy, the tropical parrot.

The main characters (like Mack and Pam) are familiar (and maybe a little dull), but film still makes a safe and upbeat family viewing experience. There is no woke or mature content parents might object to. The colorful and kinetic animation also definitely exceeds expectations.

In theaters, Migration will be paired with Mooned, an animated short from the Minions world that might even be funnier than the feature, in a Roadrunner & Coyote or Tom & Jerry kind of way. It turns out Vector the super-villain marooned himself on the Moon. Fittingly, each attempt to escape results in spectacular bodily harm. It is refreshingly old school and legit funny. Recommended for families and animation fans, Migration and Mooned open Friday (12/22) in New York at the AMC Lincoln Square.