Domesticated animals moved back to the wilderness after annoying human beings.  What would happen to these creatures?  Will they be able to adapt when living in the wild?  On paper, this sounds like a good concept for a family animated feature, but the resulting film, OPEN SEASON comes across as a lackluster, unfunny, manipulative and predictable flick – especially after a glut of mediocre animation films released this year. 

A poor start for the newly formed Sony Pictures Animation, whose logo is proudly flashed across the screen at the start.

Tame grizzly, Boog (Martin Lawrence) lives the perfect life with owner forest ranger, Beth (Debra Messing).  Boog saves mule deer Elliot (Ashton Kutcher) from hunter Shaw (Gary Sinese).  When Elliot fowls things up, Boog is returned way back to the wild. He meets up with a bunch of characters, all cutesy and bearing wild accents as expected, and learns not only how to live the wild life but life lessons as well.  The flaw in the script is that Boog’s adapting deals with the trouble with hunters during OPEN SEASON rather than living with the other animals in the woods.  Why wouldn’t Boog be able to adapt otherwise?

Martin Lawrence, Gary Sinese, Ashton Kutcher and Jon Favreau are not names one would expect to voice animated characters.  Though they do an acceptable job, Kutcher’s mule deer, for example is no match for Eddie Murphy’s donkey sidekick nor Lawrence’s Boog any comparison to Mike Meyers’ SHREK.  SHREK seems to be the model film for OPEN SEASON.  OPEN SEASON also spoofs fairy tales (Goldilocks and the three bears) in one segment. 
Repetition seems to be the order of the day for OPEN SEASON.  Boog makes his cutesy face and wags his fluffy bottom just once too many times.  Jokes are repeated (the candy bar,) and set pieces dragged too long (Boog bashing Elliot up behind the curtains).  The unmemorable songs, at least are kept to a minimum.  The one segment with Boog transported by helicopter back to the wilderness is worthy of mention.  The song ‘Bad Day’ is heard on the soundtrack as the helicopter flies across the red dusk sky.  The end of good times for Boog is signaled.

There is so only so much one can take with OPEN SEASON once the story falls into predictability, the jokes deteriorate, songs fail to amuse and cutesy antics grow monotonous.  Though OPEN SEASON garnered lots of laughs from the kids below 12 at the promo screening, it does not mean the film should not be able to cater for adults.  SHREK proved that.