A Stork's Journey

Sparrow "Richard" has been brought up by a family of storks firmly believing that he is one of them, just a bit different. When his family plan to migrate, though, they don't intend on taking him with them and so the poor wee critter awakens one morning to find mum, dad and brother "Max" have set off and left him behind. Desolate, he sets off after them towards Africa. It's going to be a tough challenge on his own, but luckily he has his scatty friend "Olga/Oleg" - an owl with a pretend friend, and the self-adoring parakeet "Kiki" who thinks he's really Donna Summer. Their journey is riddled with dangers but also with opportunities to meet new friends and do some self-discovering along the way. Can he catch up with his family though? Well no, this isn't really very original nor is there an whole heap of jeopardy as the film progresses, but there are still some fun characters and the disco-bird has a few good lines as it builds to a denouement with a fearsome honey badger. It's a story about not judging a book by it's cover and though a bit long and maybe just a bit prone to some (negative) male stereotypes, it's still quite an enjoyable animation that moves along fine.

"Richard The Stroke" was a really fun family movie to watch. I must confess I had never heard anything about it before today and I thought it was a Dreamworks or Pixar movie that was kept at a low profile. It's an European movie (German/Belgian) and I admit me and my kids had our doubts about it but as the movie progresses our doubts became completely unfounded because "Richard The Stork" was really, really entertaining. It has a slight darker edge than typical Dreamworks or Pixar fare and the story is a bit in the lines of "Finding Nemo", so if you enjoyed that one you will definitely enjoy this one too.

Richard is an orphan sparrow who is found by Aurora, a lovely stork who becomes his stepmother. The pigeon grows believing his just a "short" stork, but his stepdad, Claudius, is reluctant in having him as his stepson, arguing that sparrows don't migrate and when the time comes to do so it will ultimately kill little Richard. When fall sets in, Aurora, Claudius and Max (Richard's stork brother) leave the small pigeon behind and fly off to Africa, although Aurora and Max are reluctant but ultimately obey Claudius orders. Upon waking up, Richard is all alone in the stork nest and the rest of the movie is his story in going out to look for his stork family.

"Richard The Stork" has a lot of funny and heartfelt moments and this European kids movie does try to emulate to some extent the storytelling style of Dreamworks or Pixar movies but adds its own along the way. Grown ups and kids will surely love it, my family enjoyed it wholeheartedly!

The film is not much, just average A few of the scenes will touch ur heart and climax bgm was good

What a cute and sad drawing, the pobi already loses his family in the beginning and then the adoptive family abandons him without mercy, sad, he gets a little lighter with the comical side when the little owl and the other little bird enter.... The graphic it's beautiful, but the strong point of the film is the story, a perfect script development, in a mix of heavy drama involved by a light comic vein, in addition to the captivating characters...

This is the first full length animated Movie made namely in Luxembourg which I could view in Luxembourgish. The story is rather simple but the animations are world class and the dialogs, at least in Luxembourgish, are funny, namely because they are playing nicely with the particularities of the language. I hope the translations are just as good. The movie includes also a few nice novel ideas, namely on how birds use the social media (not a spoiler: watch it to discover how). I really liked watching the movie and my kids (4 and 7) adored it. It is a movie for the whole family not to be missed.