Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Mr. Neutron Valiant is certainly a step up from Robots (then again, what isn't?). By itself, it's an extremely average film, but you can't help notice similarities between the two. It certainly doesn't help that Ewan McGregor - who played the main character in this studio's previous film - plays the main character here as well. It also doesn't help that he's EXACTLY THE SAME, personality-wise. He's a good-natured, underclass hero that you can't give a crap about no matter how hard you try. And just like Robots, at the end of this film you get a nauseating "everything's fine" scene where everyone's just dancing. But at least they did away with those nauseating, embarrassing pop culture references.Valiant is a predictable believe-in-yourself story (yet again an echo of Robots) with stereotype characters (ditto), illogical plot points and WTF moments (when the main character is chased across an entire ocean in a matter of seconds) but nice visuals. Being the Python fan, the prescence of John Cleese was enough to get me excited, but nothing could save the flat characters and predictable story.

bazdruker The idea was brilliant, almost inspired, but it turned into very much of a lame duck (no pun intended) on screen. The Dickin award was and is a sort of animals VC or George Cross. In World War II (when this film is set), homing pigeons more or less cleaned up with 32 out of 54 awarded for displaying conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty whilst serving with British Commonwealth armed forces or civil emergency services (according to Wikipedia). Now back to the movie. The trouble is that it never really managed to run (or fly) very far with the original immaculate conception. I thought that it pretty much found its level by catering for eight year-olds (of all ages) by copious amounts of burping and farting from the birdie characters, which was more or less the high point of the action. The plot (if you can call it that) was thinner than the wafer on your interval ice-cream, with the eponymous Valiant (voiced by Ewan McGregor), wanting to be a hero in the Royal Air Force Homing Pigeon Service, which flew messages about enemy movements across the English Channel. Although it may represent a (forgotten) slice of wartime history, it fails miserably to impress at the comedic level, except unintentionally: "We have ways of making you squawk" is possibly one of the worst lines ever in movie history (and I've sat through a few, I can tell you). There are possible compensations though. Here, I'm thinking of the richest array of vocal talents never to have shown their faces on screen, probably making it one of the most expensive British voiced-over films ever. You name them and there they are. Everyone from John Cleese and Hugh Laurie to John Hurt and Rik Mayall. But then these voices are so distinctive, the problem I had was in attempting to dissociate the cartoon from his real life comedy persona. Moreover, this wasn't helped by the writers apparently trying to recreate their sitcom characters by cunning use of dialogue(certainly with the Ricky Gervais character, who sounded more like David Brent out of "The Office" than David Brent out of "The Office"). In fact, it was so predictable at times, they may just as well have got Rory Bremner to do all the voices. (Perhaps they did - that would account for Hugh Laurie coming across more like his Blackadder character than Hugh Laurie doing his Blackadder character.)So my advice to you is not to inflict this film on yourself unless you're with (or you are) an eight year-old (of any age) desperate to spend an hour and a half out of the rain. Of course, I could be wrong and possibly this film made a lot of money at the box office. In which case I can only think that the movie-going public were shat on by the film makers from a great height. Final verdict: Bird's Custard.

Gordon-11 This film is about a pigeon called Valiant, whom no one thinks he could do anything big. It turns out that he does Britain a great service in World War II as a messenger pigeon.The animation is excellent. The movements are smooth, and the birds are portrayed in great detail. However, the plot is very thin and totally predictable. The humour is not funny because it repeats itself every 30 seconds. There must have been 30 scenes where birds have mid air collisions and 30 scenes where birds hit a post and falls down. That does not even count the 30 farts and belches. And have I forgotten to mention smelly armpits? Can the filmmakers be more inspired and make less crude humour? I am not sure if kids will enjoy this. The characters are not even likable or cute. It is not entertaining enough.

ccthemovieman-1 I can see where this Disney animated feature film really never made it big-time. It offers some really good things but overall, it just isn't funny enough to be a hit.It certainly has the visuals to be a smash. Man, this is a beautiful film. The colors are bold and brilliant, scene after scene. It's a visual feast. For that reason alone, I give it seven "stars."Some of the humor is funny and very clever, but not enough of it. The story is a takeoff on old World War II films which kids will never "get." Too much of the gags involve slapstick as one of the pigeons flies into a wall or falls down, making a loud noise or that "Bugsy" belches and farts a lot. That happens frequently and wears thin fast. The laughs come more with the subtle stuff.Story-wise, it's the usual little guy or misfits-being-heroes story, so common in films. Valiant is the little pigeon who really shouldn't even be in the Royal Homing Pigeon Service because he's too little, but he gets in, along with his aforementioned smelly friend "Bugsy" and then inspires everyone while also wooing a pretty nurse.Once again, though: hats off to the artists. This is one beautiful-looking animated movie.