Migration Review: Illumination's Latest Is Pretty But Dull

During a year that has seen much conversation about film running times, I have found myself frequently reflecting on a quote from Roger Ebert: “No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.” The logic of the sentiment is not difficult to decipher; well-made cinema will keep your attention regardless of length, and it’s always a relief when the end credits of a terrible feature start to roll. It’s been a handy reference to have in my back pocket this fall when explaining that I love all 206 minutes of Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon.

I make note of that Ebert quote here because director Benjamin Renner’s Migration, the new animated film from Illumination, strangely exists in a middle ground of that binary critical philosophy. The duck-centric adventure is only 91 minutes long including its end credits, making it one of the briskest major studio releases in 2023, and as such, it’s not a movie that can be accused of overstaying its welcome. At the same time, however, that run time is very much reflective of the movie’s general weight and creativity – which is to say light and limited. It’s not offensive, annoying, or awful (all of which are adjectives I’ve applied to previous Illumination features), but it is bland.

Written by Mike White (quite the 180° turn from his work on the gripping HBO series The White Lotus), Migration centers on the five-member Mallard family – ducks who live a calm and peaceful life in a New England pond. When a flock of birds flies in one day and explains that they are in the midst of migrating to Jamaica, the Mallard matriarch Pam (Elizabeth Banks) wants to join in the journey as well, but she finds resistance from her timid, introverted husband Mack (Kumail Nanjiani). He is content staying at home where it’s safe – but when he realizes that he may be slowly turning into his oddball curmudgeon Uncle Dan (Danny DeVito), he decides that a change must be made.

The next day, Mack tells Pam and his two children, Dax (Caspar Jennings) and Gwen (Tresi Gazal), that they will be flying to Jamaica, and they take off for the journey in majestic V-formation. However, it’s not long before they start running into issues – the biggest being getting lost in New York City. In order to stay safe and continue their trip, they have to rely on strangers whom they meet along the way.

Migration is all plot and virtually no story, making for a dull experience.

Once the family leaves their home at the start of Migration, plot utterly dominates story, as the film doesn’t do any work to develop motivations for any of the characters beyond Mack (again, a 180° turn from what we typically see in Mike White’s writing). Adding insult to injury, the arc for the duck protagonist is more akin to the surface tension atop a full glass of water than the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. His simple agreement to leave the pond and travel to Jamaica is arguably the biggest growth moment in the movie, and all of the boldness he demonstrates from that point forward feels more like extension than expansion.

With the Mallard family as a whole not setting out to do anything beyond get to Jamaica, Migration functions by just going from Conflict A to Conflict B to Conflict C and so on – each centering on a new, one-note colorful character with a celebrity voice. They all reek of first draft ideas, including the protagonists meeting a bunch of street-tough pigeons, being tasked with freeing a parrot from a cage, and avoiding being cooked by a chef as duck à l'orange. There is no imagination apparent.

It’s a movie that very much could use extra verve from its ensemble cast to add a bit of extra flavor, but the film’s voice-over performances have similar issues to Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie from earlier this year: with the exception of Keegan-Michael Key, who follows his turn as Toad by delivering a theatrical Jamaican accent as the parrot Delroy, all of the performers seem to be featured for star power. The work by Awkwafina and Carol Kane can be partially excused just because their familiar, unique voices are well used for their respective characters (a seemingly sinister heron and the leader of the aforementioned street-wise pigeons), but it’s disappointing that the comedic talents of Kumail Nanjiani and Elizabeth Banks are not effectively utilized, and Danny DeVito’s part ends up being too obvious to be funny.

While Migration features some great animation, it doesn't find a way to stand out from the many, many animated movies with birds.

On a similar quality level, Migration is a nice movie to look at, but the animation also doesn’t present any obvious examples of innovation and there’s nothing that’s going to blow away casual movie-goers. There are select scenes that are beautiful and fun, including a sequence where the family flies above the clouds and an impromptu dance sequence with Mack and Pam, but after a decade-plus of bird-centric computer-animated films like Rio, The Angry Birds Movie, Storks, Happy Feet, Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole, Free Birds, Penguins Of Madagascar and more, it fails to stand out as particularly special.

Migration can be said to be one of Illumination’s best movies yet, but that’s a pretty low bar to clear. It has cute moments and the occasional funny gag, but it mostly leaves no lasting impression. There are worse ways to spend 90 minutes in a movie theater, but it’s still not particularly good.