"Open Season" provides chuckle

By Roxana Samano
The Collegian

If a comedy with a multitude of animated creatures is what you’re looking for then “Open Season” is the movie for you.

The movie stars Martin Lawrence as Boog, a grizzly bear with no survival skills who has been pampered for the greater part of his life. Lawrence co-stars with Ashton Kutcher, who plays a wild mule, Elliot, that always seems to be in trouble.

The storyline did not veer off of the main plot. It appeared to be a pretty easy movie for children to follow as they were chuckling every other minute during the movie.

The movie begins when Boog saves Elliot from being placed on a mantle by a crazed hunter. After Boog saves Elliot’s life, Elliot makes it his number one priority in life to pay Boog back for everything he has done. Elliot smells his way around the woods and finds Boog living in a garage in Ranger Beth’s home and urges him to find his inner-wild animal.

Boog gets into a heap load of trouble after Elliot convinces him that there is more to life than living in a garage and manages to lure him to the wild life. The adventure does not last long as things quickly spiral out of control and get themselves into more trouble than they could imagine. This leads Boog to be tranquilized by Ranger Beth who has no other choice but to drop Boog off in the wild for good.

With the open season upon them, and the hunters ready to kill anything that gets in their path, Elliot seeks to get Boog in touch with his inner grizzly to bring together all of the creatures in the woods and take the forest back.

Humor is what Columbia Pictures was aiming for and accomplished.

“Open Season” is based on the humor of cartoonist Steve Moore (“In the Bleachers”) who, along with John Carls, serves as executive producer.

This was a funny production.

There were a lot of innuendos woven throughout the entire film. The audience seemed to eat it up as waves of chuckles overwhelmed the theatre during these particular scenes.

While “Open Season” was not the best animated film and not the most children-friendly film, it still was a great film with plenty of humor.

“Open Season” begins Friday, September 29, 2006.

Grade: C

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