Le voyage de Ricky

An excellent story of unexpected friendships, the true meaning of family, and fellowship overcoming differences. Compassion, humor, and determination highlight this wonderful family movie.

"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!

Although there are segments of animation that look pretty good, like land and water, it's clear they were not from the same animation house that did the storks. The overall animation is of the level of 20-25 years ago with limited use of camera techniques used in CGI films in the last few years. With most of the characters blend with the surroundings.

The story is sadly overdone and completely underwhelming. The sparrow that thinks he's a stork and a stork flock that doesn't share nearly enough screne time to believe or have emotional buy-in to the conflict that is supposed to be there.

Poor writing on top of that. Conscious animals don't know what a train is but are aware of puns, city names, and more.

That said, if you imagination only needs to be at a 6-year-old level, go for it.

I had the opportunity to watch it at the Anima Festival (Brussels) before it gets released in the theaters in my country. Very nice surprise!

The main character is a bit stubborn like children can be, while the supportive characters are mostly crazy, fun, kind and emotional, which makes an interesting cocktail.

As the film is centered on birds, it's kind of a (sky)road movie with enriching encounters, discoveries about yourself for the main character and interesting places.

Some very funny scenes for both kids and adults, it's been a pleasure! Go and watch it... and bring your kids / godchildren / little cousins, etc.!

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