I was one of the fortunate people to have seen “Open Season” in its initial release in the IMAX format. With this large format screen, the animation was really quite breathtaking, especially a scene in the middle that has the entire cast of characters rush down a waterfall.

In getting a chance to see “Open Season” on the television, a screen much smaller than that in an IMAX theater, I found that it still retained plenty of its charm.

The film goes into some pretty familiar territory. We have a group of animals that return to the forest from captivity, which we have seen in “Madagascar” and “The Wild.” During the movie, they have to face off against the humans to prove their worth, which we have also seen in “Over the Hedge” and “The Ant Bully.”

However, even with these familiar elements, I found a lot to enjoy in “Open Season.” Boog is a grizzly bear that has been raised by a cub by a park ranger. She currently has him working for his dinner in a live show for families. However, when a hyperkinetic mule deer named Elliot escapes a hunter and befriends Boog, their lives become more complicated.

The park ranger is forced to return Boog and Elliot to the forest. To ensure they don’t get killed by the flock of hunters about to enter the woods for open game season, she puts them as deep into the forest as she can. Of course, Boog wakes up in terror and convinces Elliot to help him get back home.

With kids films crossing the line a little too often now and then, it’s refreshing to see a movie that has its target audience completely in mind. Still, even with a very even tone for the whole family, there’s plenty of off color humor to make a guy like me chuckle. Who ever thought you could cram some good, old fashioned toilet humor into a movie about animals in the wild, but they do, and I am not embarrassed to admit that I found these to be the funniest parts of the film.

And of course the animals are cute. I’m not just talking about the mule deer and the grizzly bear. Like most solid animated films, there’s an entire cavalcade of supporting characters that are just as funny – if not funnier than – the leads. In “Open Season,” you have an Austrian wiener dog with an Oedipus complex, a pair of paranoid and psychotic mallard ducks, a power-hungry squirrel defending every tree in the forest and a laid back porcupine that can’t stop saying “Buddy” in a much funnier way than Pauley Shore ever did.

I’ve watched this film with my kids a couple times, and they thoroughly enjoy it. Even if the story may seem a bit rehashed and trite for an adult, it pushes the right buttons for children, taking them through the right range of emotions.

Originally, the thought of Ashton Kutcher headlining a kids movie made my teeth ache, but I found myself really enjoying his performance in spite of myself. Like the character of Kelso in “That 70s Show,” the not-quite-right mule deer Elliot seems to be tailor-made for Kutcher’s personality.

Recently, DVD releases of CGI films have been touch-and-go. Releases like “Cars” left us dry with scant special features, which is completely out of style for the Pixar studio. Fortunately, “Open Season” has a nice assortment of bonus features on the DVD.

There’s several behind-the-scenes featurettes as well as a couple deleted scenes. The filmmakers lend their voices to a commentary track, and the breathtaking waterfall sequence is deconstructed from storyboard to final product. An art gallery, a set-top “Wheel of Fortune” game for the kids and short hand-drawn animation movies round out the bunch. There’s also a bonus short with Boog and Elliot trying to steal some pastries from the wiener dog’s camper, which is cute.

“Open Season” was a good animated film – not the best of 2006, but it definitely rose to the top among the morass of CGI movies that hit the screens this year.



Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound. Anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1). Mastered in high-definition. French and Spanish language tracks. French and Spanish subtitles. English language subtitles for the hearing impaired.