Coming from the maker’s of The Lion King II Simba’s Pride and National Treasure Book of Secrets and starring the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone and Milla Jovovich, A Warriors Tale hits an extremely bum note considering the talent it has behind. Sickly Sweet and Cringe worthy are the best way to describe this poorly made animation.
Savva (Jovovich), a 9-year-old boy, his mother and his village are under threat from the horrible fate of the evil hyenas terrorizing their land. The village people are captured in order to be handed over to Mam JoZee (Goldberg), a three-headed ape who rules Monkeys, apes and Gorilla’s. The village once had protection from the white wolves, but due to a curse set on them by a wizard to turn them into Ricky’s they are all gone and the village people are left in peril to fend for themselves.
After being hidden in the basement of his home by his mother, Savva embarks on a journey to seek out the wizard who placed this curse in order to help him save the village. Along his adventure, Savva meets a white wolf who wishes to join him as he too wants to find the wizard to ask for the curse to be lifted. As the two venture across the jungle landscape, becoming the best of friends they encounter a number of different characters who in one way or another seek the wizard for their own reasons and join the boy and the wolf on their journey.
The journey this group of misfits take isn’t plain sailing as cute little Puffy (Stone) is kidnapped, mistaken to be a god. Once he has been rescued the white wolf seeks out his father for help in the fight against the monkeys who block the path to their freedom but is rejected. They realise they are on their own but his father see’s sense just before the big mighty battle.
For almost the entire duration of this inadequately made computer animation, nothing makes much sense; the storyline is transparently thin with no real hint of what’s going on or how they got to this point. The meeting of each different character is messy and completely pointless. You can’t help feeling the creators said let’s just make up a random storyline with no real structure, throw in a few oddball characters throw it all into a pot and see what we come up with and throw the big bucks at some Hollywood stars to lend their voices.
A Warriors Tale hints at two fingers up at the stereotypes when the wizard turns out to be a young girl – All Wizards are men and old right! She may be young but she is wise beyond her years and shows the boy he is the brave warrior he seeks and grants the wishes of his fellow companions.
A Warriors Tale is out in Cinemas April 1.