It's basically Freaky Friday (203) but for animals, fictional animals. Two creatures who don't like each other end up switching bodies. It's not like Hoppers (2026). One creature that looks like a tiny otter and another creature that looks like a secretary-bird don't like each other, but the otter ends up getting transformed into the bird and the bird gets transformed into the otter. It's a device to get the two creatures to understand one another and ultimately foster compassion. The film establishes why the two don't like each other. It's not like Zootopia (2016) in which one is a predator of the other. Yet, the issue at its core is about food shortage.
By the end of the film though, that food shortage issue feels so contrived and nonsensical. The birds in this film are starving because of some environmental changes. A lot of birds migrate due to seasonal changes, as well as environmental changes. Not all birds migrate, but usually those birds don't live in climates that have seasonal changes. Those birds also don't have a limited diet in which they only eat one thing. In this film, the birds in question seem to have a limited diet where they eat only one thing. At one point, they learn how to eat something that the otters only eat and then takeover eating that one food to the detriment of the otters. The food in question is a kind of plant or pod, which would suggest these otters are more like squirrels in that they're exclusively herbivores, but in real-life otters are carnivorous and can eat a wider variety of things like fish or even small birds. Yet, this film wants you to go with the premise that there's currently only one food source for these two different animals.
Michael B. Jordan (Sinners and Black Panther) stars as the voice of Ollie who is a Pookoo, which is the aforementioned, otter-like creature that lives in this fictional forest. Actually, Ollie lives on an island near the forest. The island is separated and protected by water. The Pookoo mainly eat these plants called piplets that grow on the island. Due to a food shortage, birds known as Javan come to the island and start stealing the piplets for themselves and attacking any Pookoo that try to get some as well. This forces the Pookoo to burrow underground and hide, but without their regular food source, they'll die. When Ollie tries to get the Pookoo to leave, he falls and lands on this magical pod that transforms him into a Pookoo and now he has to try to figure out how to transform back into his original self.
Juno Temple (Fargo and Ted Lasso) co-stars as the voice of Ivy who is a Javan. She's one of the birds that came to the island to get the food of the Pookoo. She knows that it was a Pookoo that showed her how to eat the food that is now feeding her family and her whole race of birds. Yet, she somehow doesn't know or realize that the Pookoo have been scared off by her people. She claims never to have forgotten how the Pookoo helped her and her people, but she never makes any attempt to find them or thank them. When she later sees Ollie trying to run off the Javan, she never stops to ask why. She's just completely oblivious to what her people have done to the Pookoo that it renders her rather unsympathetic. Also, her character is one that rambles incessantly and is rather annoying.
The myth of these magical pods is supposed to be a myth. Animals in this forest don't believe that it's real. Yet, it's revealed that these pods are often out in the open for anyone to discover, or these magical pods are close enough to certain animal dens that it's weird that they haven't been discovered or utilized. Like with the idea of these animals only eating one thing and apparently having trouble finding anything else, the myth around these magical pods feels like underdeveloped world-building. I can accept the premise but I'm not really buying it. Director Nathan Greno comes from Disney Animation and he's worked on several of their projects, which typically boasts good world-building. This film though really just wants to get us to this idea of these starving animals and these magical pods transforming Ollie and Ivy, so that we get the comedy of errors that we see play out.
Ironically, Greno worked on Zootopia, which was about two unlikely animals having to work together and even befriend each other. There's also an issue in that 2016 hit about animals being at odds with each other over what they eat. That film was more grounded and didn't have any magical elements to it. This film does have magic in it, so it's understandable that magic would be used to solve things. The ending and really the very ending though feels like too much of a deus ex machina. It made me question that if this solution was always out there, why didn't it arrive sooner? A lot of the creatures here have been starving and having a rough time, and their solution only arrives at the very end. It made me roll my eyes at the whole thing.
Rated PG for action, peril, and some scary images.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 41 mins.
Available on Netflix.
