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Adventures in Zambezia
Score: 70%
Rating: G
Publisher: Sony Pictures Home
                  Entertainment

Region: 1
Media: DVD/1
Running Time: 82 Mins.
Genre: Animated/Family
Audio: English, French (Double au
           Quebec), Spanish 5.1 Dolby
           Digital

Subtitles: English, English SDH, French,
           Spanish


Features:
  • Birds of a Feather Featurette
  • An African Story Featurette
  • The Tree City Featurette
  • Technical Challenges Featurette
  • "Come and Fly with Me" Music Video

Adventures in Zambezia tells the tale of young falcon Kai (Jeremy Suarez) who lives a quiet life with his father, Tendai (Samuel L. Jackson), but longs for some excitement. One day, he happens upon a group of traveling birds who are headed to Zambezia, the famed City of Birds. Following a spat with his father, Kai decides to follow another flock of birds headed to Zambezia, not realizing that a large and evil lizard named Budzo (Jim Cummings) has plans to destroy the city and consume the highly guarded and precious eggs resting there. When Tendai goes after his son, he is captured by Budzo, who is also using the disparity and prejudice between the birds of Zambezia and the shunned Marabous in order to hatch his evil plot. Even Zambezia’s leader, Sekhuro (Leonard Nimoy), is concerned for the safety of his young daughter, Zoe (Abigail Breslin) who has also taken a liking to young Kai.

While Zambezia is typically protected by the Hurricanes, an elite group of dangerous birds led by Ajax (Jeff Goldblum) who patrol the skies surrounding this paradise, it seems Budzo might just be successful if all the birds don’t decide to work together despite their differences to fend off this common and dangerous foe. Will Kai become a Hurricane and fulfill his destiny or will Budzo destroy this island refuge?

I actually found Adventures in Zambezia to be very predictable and fairly dull. While some of the animation was pretty, I think watching this DVD on a high def TV made it looks worse. Overall, the colors just weren't vivid, as you would expect them to be from the cover art. There were a few birds that really popped off the screen, but they were very few and far between. Mostly, things looked just okay and this was truly disappointing, as I was expecting an explosion of color from a haven for birds of all shapes, sizes and colors. The voice acting was fine; the movie just wasn't all that engaging. It had a nice African-inspired soundtrack and I can't say the film won't hold the attention of really young children, but it was pretty boring to me, even though I typically like animated films. Special features include a handful of featurettes on the making of the film, plus a sing-along animated music video. However, it's a rental at best.



-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ashley Perkins
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