Valiant

I’m giving Valiant two stars for a general audience, but I would say that it would be closer to three or even four stars for kids. It’s cute, mildly funny, and the story is interesting yet simple to follow.

Valiant (voiced by Ewan McGregor) is a small pigeon who lives in the English countryside during World War II. He wants to join the Royal Homing Pigeon Service (RHPS) and serve his country by delivering important messages that have the potential to save lives and win the war for the allies. Unfortunately, he is rather small in stature, but strong in spirit and determination, and blah blah blah, so he sets off to sign up for training. Along the way he encounters Bugsy (voiced by Ricky Gervais), a dirty and unkempt swindling pigeon who signs up for the RHPS along with Valiant in an attempt to avoid some aggressive crows whom he just tricked out of some seeds. The pair are joined by three other misfit types and summarily placed in Squad F, which is the reject squad. Surely, this squad will not be called upon to embark on a dangerous mission with no likelihood of success and yet emerge victorious where the superior squads failed. Surely.

Ah, but of course this is Disney. And we’ve seen this story a skajillion times before, so we all know precisely what will happen. Again however, this is a kid’s movie, so your average 6 year old probably hasn’t learned his share of Disney life lessons yet. Valiant and his squadron are trained endlessly, yet they continuously seem to have a series of blunders that cause the drill sergeant to constantly shake his head in exasperation. Inevitably, Squads A through E are taken out by falcons, and a dangerous mission to retrieve a message from the French Resistance is left to the bungling Squad F. They set off to complete the mission, learning about teamwork and the importance of believing in oneself along the way.

There are a few scattered scenes that I thought were pretty funny, but mostly the film delivered a few chuckles here and there. John Cleese lends his voice to a Squad A pigeon who is captured by the falcons, and it was his character that provided the most laughs in the movie. Bugsy is also a fairly funny character as well, although not quite to the extent as Cleese’s pigeon. The filmmakers use Bugsy mostly for the farting, burping, and armpit humor, but fortunately he was also given several funny lines of dialogue that did not revolve around bodily functions.

This movie was moderately funny, and it was a cute and entertaining story. I am sure that younger kids would like it, but it doesn’t seem to have the same adult appeal of higher caliber animated films like Toy Story. Let me put it this way, any adult who takes a child to see Valiant will be reasonably entertained without worrying that he/she will be completely miserable during the short hour and 50 minutes.