Don’t give a hoot for new 3D flick Owls of Ga’ Hoole Arts/Life By JANE STEVENSON, QMI AGENCY Posted -48 second ago

Director Zack Snyder is known for such dark, highly stylized, action-packed and violent movies as the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen.

So whoever decided he was the guy to helm a 3D computer animated children’s movie about owls, in this case Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, was totally off the mark judging from the result.

First, the good news. Legend, based on Kathryn Lasky’s series of books, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, is a visually stunning movie with incredible attention paid to detail no matter how small and impressive use of 3D, so it’s got that going for it (thanks to the same creative team behind the Oscar winning Happy Feet).

Just don’t sit too close to the movie screen, as it’s a real assault on the eyes with a lot of flying and battle scenes and extreme close-ups of owl’s faces.

Unfortunately, the plot is impossible to understand, with little in the way of humour or pacing to break up the unrelenting action.

What we do know is that two owls — Soren (Jim Sturgess of Across the Universe fame), and his jealous older brother Kludd (Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jason Stackhouse on True Blood) — find themselves kidnapped by an evil sect of owls called the Pure Ones. They are coled by Nyra (Helen Mirren), and are looking for both slaves and fighters in their battle to triumph over the mythic Guardians of Ga’Hoole.

As the Pure Ones recruit unwilling owls, they expose them to the moon at night so that they are “moon-blinked” or hypnotized to not remember their original identities. Add to that, many, many other plots points — Soren escapes the

clutches of the Pure Ones with a tiny owl named Gylfie (Emily Barclay) and is mentored by Ezylryb (Geoffrey Rush) when they arrive at Ga’Hoole — and endless breeds of owls who are hard to tell apart as they are introduced in quick succession.

Confused yet?

I think the fundamental problem here is that the screenwriters (John Orloff and Emil Stern) tried to cram too much story into one film.

The movie is based on Lasky’s first three books, which hopefully better explain all of the different owl characters and their mythology.