Illumination Studios is famous for its Despicable Me and Minions franchises.  Occasionally they have branched out to do animated films such as The Grinch the remake of the popular animated holiday classic. Sing and this mast April’s release of The Mario Brothers Movie. Their Despicable Me and Minions franchises have made them a lot of money which is what they hope to make on their latest feature-length animated film, Migration.

Mack (Kumail Nanjiani) and Pam (Elizabeth Banks) are the father and mother of two younger ducklings Gwen (Tresi Gazal) and Dax (Casper Jennings) They live a happy life in a New Egland pond before their lives are changed. A group of other ducks fly in and let them know they’re headed to Jamaica for the winter. Mack isn’t into this at all but it gets the rest of the family including their uncle Dan (Danny DeVito fascinated by venturing out. 

After a bit of coaxing the overprotective Mack agrees to migrate his family to Jamaica but they run into a few snags on the way. Two of these are them taking a break from flying because of an impending storm and ending up trapped by two creepy herons Erin (Carol Kane) and her relatively comatose husband. And the other is they get lost on the way in fog and end up in New York City where they meet some new friends. Pigeons help them learn about life outside their little pond and get back on their way to their vacation in Jamaica.

Mike White, the creator of the HBO worldwide sensation known as The White Lotus, and Benjamin Renner, the director, wrote this story. It’s not anything that filmgoers haven’t seen before. It’s a road trip film. Plenty of films have been made on a similar topic just not of an animated nature. Finding Nemo has some similar themes of an overprotective father figure looking for his lost child but that’s as far as it goes. The story is pretty basic. It’s what Renner and the co-director Guylo Homsy do with the script that makes it exceptional.

Dreamworks, another Universal animation studio, trademarked a painted style of animation with Puss n Boots: the Last Wish. Now Illumination has combined that style with their computer animation to create a nice pairing of mixed styles of animation to bring this story to life. The animation was very crisp and clear and jumped off the screen. It contrasted the painted style in the background very nicely. The two different t styles worked very well together on screen.

The director assembled a nice voice-over cast for this story. Along with those I mentioned there is Kim (Isabela Merced) a young duckling who arrived on the pond with the other migrating ducks and befriends Gwen and Dax, Awkwafina as Chump a baby pigeon, and Keegan Michael Key as an domesticated Parrot. Who helps the family escape from a chef who wants to turn them into Duck al’Orange. Together these characters add an extra element to the story of this family on vacation.

Like a lot of road trip films, this one has a subplot about family discovery and understanding of one another. The wife and husband have issues and the father has problems understanding his kids. This journey helps him figure out the priorities that truly matter to him and how he must listen to his wife more and embrace his children’s curiosity. They are always learning and trying to find out about life. And parents are a big part of their growth.

Migration was one of my most anticipated movies of the third quarter of this year.  I’ve been a big fan of Illumination Animation and this one loves up to all of my expectations. The voice-over  cast are exceptional and the story by White and Renner is a good one despite its familiarity. The road trip genre hadn’t been done like this before. The real achievement here is the animation. Combining two different styles together to make a gorgeous animated film is a great idea. This movie will surely be a hit this holiday season among all the other ten pole films.

4 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen