Known for the longest time to me simply as “The Owl Movie”. My wife has been dying forever for us to watch this movie and we finally got around to watching it. Brought to us by Netflix on stunning blu ray. Speaking of which, this movie is superb is HD, absolutely spectacular.
So the movie. Well I really enjoyed it. It was directed by Zack Snyder who made the 300 movie (haven’t seen it) and based on the books by Kathryn Lasky. The story tells of the legendary Guardians. A group of owls who have sworn to protect all of owl kind. But it has been years since Guardians had been seen or heard and their tale of legends are now believed by many to be myth. But no to our hero of the movie Soren. A young owl who is kidnapped, along with his brother Kludd and taken away to be enslaved by a group of owls called The Pure Ones.
The best part that I liked about this movie is that action actually holds up. The flight and fight scenes are top notch. Just as fast and action packed as say Top Gun or Star Wars. The pure ones have an evil plan to trap and destroy the Guardians. This movie surprised me. Once you get past the fact they are owls and it has music in it from Owl City it is really, really good. I got way into it. My wife has read all the books and said that they did a decent job adapting the first part of the story although there were a couple of big changes that it was hard for her to get around, but she said they probably made those changes to simplify and not make the story as dark as the books. I would recommend it. It might surprise you. Besides that it is amazing in blu ray!
Final Verdict: I could see me owning it if they make more movies.
A Few Differences between the Movie and the Book Series (without giving too much away):
- The Pure Ones and St. Aggies' are two different groups of owls both with evil intentions
- Kludd's character is much more evil (if you can believe it)
- Soren doesn't find out until much later that Ezlryb is Lyze of Kiel
- Digger and Twilight are also orphaned owlettes not fully grown owls
