In a medium where stop-motion chickens organize elaborate escape plans, computer-generated ducks have to do a lot more than relocate to amuse us. Illumination’s “Migration” - about a fussy duck dad who reluctantly reconsiders his fear of flying - is a cartoon in search of a concept, where the most daring idea is hiring the Oscar-nominated co-director of 2012’s “Ernest & Celestine” and asking him to abandon that movie’s unique watercolor style in favor of a relatively standard digital approach. At least the backgrounds are eye-catching, as a waddle of mallards crack jokes amid beautiful fall foliage. In the opening scene, director Benjamin Renner teases what “Migration” might have looked like had Illumination honcho Chris Meledandri let him stick to his signature aesthetic, rather than bend it to the studio’s house style: Emerald-headed, overprotective Mack (comedian Kumail Nanjiani, quite literally quacking his lines) tells his kids, Dax (Caspar Jennings) and Gwen (Tresi Gazal), scary bedtime stories so they won’t dream of leaving the pond. The sequence is rendered in appealing 2D, with the sort of thick brush strokes and endearing design Renner brought to his “Big Bad Fox” comics. It’s odd that Mack and his more adventurous partner, Pam (Elizabeth Banks), who’s longing for a change of scenery, have a pair of differently aged offspring instead of several cute ducklings, unless you figure that these aren’t really ducks but stand-ins for a four-person human family, with crazy uncle Dan (Danny DeVito) along for additional laughs. As “Migration” settles into the look that will last the rest of the film - of painterly backgrounds populated by bland, bulgy-eyed birds - it’s clear what we’re in for: another kids movie in which grown-ups must overcome their narrow-mindedness. From “Encanto” to the aforementioned “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” this has become a running theme in 21st-century animation, which no longer aims to teach impressionable young viewers a lesson, preferring to reinforce the idea that they live in a world where authority figures are wrong (or at the very least, too conservative) and really ought to listen to their kiddos. “Migration” tweaks that a smidge, emphasizing that Mack should put more stock in what his wife thinks. (Do ducks have wives? This one does. And maybe a divorce in his future.) Mack’s parents may have taught him to stay close to the nest, but that’s terribly impractical in winter. And so, for the first time in his life, he agrees to fly south - except, instead of joining a flock that knows where it’s going, Mack insists on being his own navigator, setting off in the opposite direction of the many V-shaped formations headed the other way. Again, the story (credited to Renner and screenwriter Mike White of “White Lotus”) isn’t really about ducks so much as the obvious limitations of an inflexible “father knows best” mindset.
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