Storks

If you have had the misfortune of seeing the poster for this movie you would have written it off as a kiddie's gurglefest. Big mistake. The script is witty, the voice cast aggressively fine, the plot pitched as much at sophisticated adults as cartoon savvy under-agers. The one flaw? Too much. With CGI and all the techno magic at hand, who can resist?

It takes storks as baby couriers into a new dimension, namely 21st century multi natural commercialism. STORKS INC, or whatever they call themselves now, is a packaging firm to match FedEx and those fleet van people.

Junior is their top delivery bird on the promotional ladder when something goes wrong, triggering an adventure of mind frazzled complexity involving Tulip, a real-life girl who was brought up by the storks, and a freshly made baby who needs to find a home and a pack of shape-shifting wolves and an odd looking pigeon and some badass penguins and...

The plot pigs out on possibilities but the characters are great and if you can keep up with the speed of events you won't be disappointed.

Animation has gone the opposite of mainstream Hollywood which continues to play safe with superhero blockbusters, saccharine rom-coms and bankable stars in par-boiled period pieces. It takes risks and consistently pushes the envelope.

It would be presumptuous to call Storks ground breaking. The ground is familiar and it breaks in predictable ways, but the script flies wild and Junior's friends are very special, especially Tulip.

Here's the clincher. If you expect the baby to be an off-the-peg cuddle pie what is delivered has a personality that rocks the house.