Movie Thoughts: Storks (2016)

• Released: September 23, 2016
  
• Directed by: Nicholas Stoller, Doug Sweetland 
• Running time: 1 h 27 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

In a world where storks have abandoned delivering babies and now basically work for Amazon, a stork dead-set on becoming the next boss must together with a young-adult orphan to deliver a baby to her home on a journey full of peril.

My Thoughts

This is one of these movies I genuinely thought was going to be very cringe to watch. Something about the fast-paced humor, very cartoon-y character designs and all. But I was surprised by this movie being genuinely pretty heartfelt and especially funny a lot of the times.

By all accounts this is a very generic story. Junior the stork and Tulip the human orphan must work together to deliver this baby they accidentally created in their baby-making machine (long story, it makes sense in-universe). Junior doesn't like Tulip and just wants to gain a high position within the bird-Amazon company, meanwhile Tulip just wants to be accepted and be a part of the company. As a baby, due to unfortunate events her beacon ended up broken, meaning she couldn't be delivered to her designated home and she grew up at the bird-Amazon company instead (I know it has a name, but I forgot and it's pretty much just Amazon). 

Throughout their journey, Junior and Tulip must learn to rely on one another and they slowly grow closer. Junior starts to realize that his ambitions may not have the right reasons behind them, and he finally starts to accept Tulip for who she is, especially after the two of them bond with the baby they're delivering. There's also a subplot about the baby's designated family waiting for the baby, but that's honestly just the most generic and boring part of the movie. Junior's and Tulip's journey is where it's at.

This movie is definitely fast-paced, and a bit generic, so if that isn't your thing I totally understand why you'd skip it. But there's also some genuinely really funny moments in here. And the heartfelt moments, while pretty standard, to still somewhat tug on the heartstrings, especially regarding Tulip because she is desperate to give this baby the future with a family that she herself never got to have. 

The animation is also pretty hyper, but I genuinely liked it, especially with how insane the humor got a lot of the time. It's definitely good, as is the character design and other visuals. Also, a nice touch was that we got to see a few same-sex couples adopt some of the children in the final scene. Back in 2016 this was a little more tricky for movies to do than nowadays in the 2020s. Doesn't impact my rating of the movie, but it was nice to see this subtle representation.

Overall this is a movie that I genuinely didn't expect to like so much re-watching it, but I did. I've seen it once before years ago but memorized pretty much nothing about it, so I'm glad that I re-watched it. It's pretty generic and far from perfect, but the few heartfelt moments and many jokes that stick the landing make it worth it.