Best movie of this year hands down!

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Having seen the movie on TV and having read all the comments, I was surprised to learn that nobody noted a social-political context. To me it seemed obvious the main plot of Zambezia carries the notion of the 'Rainbow Nation', stressing that by only working together and including every bird, and that goes especially for the evil marabous (with their English accents), a nation can survive and flourish. In other words, South Africa. I thought that was the point the movie wanted to make, apart from the usual coming-of-age and searching-your-roots motives so dear to American movies. But maybe I am digging too deep.

You can tell if a kids movie just hit the mark, if the young viewers shout "We want to watch this again", immediately after the end credits start to roll. "Zambezia" is a very sweet, well crafted and engagingly told south-African animation, that works very well with its target audience, tells an ambitious story; and ends up being hold back by its budget restrictions. Director Wayne Thornley aims high with his home grown south-African story of the young hawk Kay, who lives alone with his father at the top of a gorge of the Zambezi in an otherwise deserted landscape. When Kay abandons his home to live in the bird's big city of "Zambezia", where he learns the truth about his origins and has to find his own strength, parallels to "The Lion King", "Finding Nemo" and other genre classics become obvious. To my surprise, Zambezia fits surprisingly well into the shoes of its predecessors. The animal characters are developed very nicely and with attention to detail. Clearly the creators of this movie know their subjects very well. I always like, when animal characters like these are still rooted in their natural behavior, something "The Jungle Book" or the mentioned "Lion King" do all so well (while annoying movies like the "Madagascar"-franchise don't seem to get this right). The south-African landscapes are stunning. It is a joy to follow Kay and all the other birds of prey as they race over rivers and waterfalls, through gorges of stone and wood at breakneck pace. These visual treats are accompanied by a simple story with an important message ("Stronger together"), both transported in a very engaging way for the young viewers. The movie is funny and exciting and the main villain is very creepy, so there is a lot to enjoy for the kids. So, that Zambezia ultimately cannot quite reach the heights of its paragons, has nothing to do with bad story telling or movie making. The creators clearly had a vision of what they wanted to accomplish and it only seems, they have been held back by limited resources. They are some plot points, that would have deserved greater development, such as the relationship between Kay and the female kite "Zoe". Though the story paces along at falcon speed, I would have loved to see some story arcs told with more patience. But these are adult complaints, that surely don't diminish the fun of younger viewers.Zambezia is a certainly underrated, definitely ambitious and well crafted piece of animation, that deserves to be given greater attention. If you need to kill an afternoon at home with your kids, this one is well worth the time.

This movie, quite frankly, is one of my favorite movies I have ever seen. Coming into this, I had no expectations. The music was incredible, the vibe of the entire movie was fun, touching, and memorable. I want to watch this movie many times more, and I highly recommend it. I was incredibly shocked to see the reviews of this movie. Honestly, this movie was the best animated film I've seen since Up. My girlfriend and I had so much fun watching this film, and we plan to watch it over and over again. And we're 26. The development of both the father and the son were well done. There were many characters that you felt a sentimental attachment towards. The animation was great, and provided a nice view of this fictional area of Africa. Let's mention again how GREAT the music was.

This is pretty much a basic story of a boy in a small town wanting to make it big in the city. The story might be a little cliché but I give them so many props for making it really entertaining. They added things to the story that I wouldn't of really guessed about and for things I did guess on, they added a bit more to make me second guess.When I say I love the characters, I'm not joking. Kai and Zoe were some of my favorite main characters in a long time. Kai is a slightly fun-loving small town boy looking for action and adventure in the large town he pretty much just learned about and that his father was protecting him from. Zoe on the other hand is a rather down to earth girl with a small fantasy that seems to correlate with Kai and yet at the same time, she is torn between her want and her role as a good child to her father. The 'romance' they have between them isn't pushed out in your face but rather put off to the side with the main story being prominent. I really love when they don't try to just throw a romance element in there to call it good.I want to take a moment to talk about Sekhuru now. He is one of my all time favorite background characters as well as a voice of reason and a father figure. There were only three people who I would have picked for their voices and luckily they picked one of them. Leonard Nimoy does him pretty nicely with how knowledgeable he is. It was like we had double father action with Sekhuru and Tandai. They each reminded me of my Dad and how protective he is.The artwork is so beautiful. All the colors of the rainbow with the birds as well as the bright and lively look to the African sky and wood. There are so many beautiful pieces to the show that I can't pick one scene that I liked best. The big difference between the big city next to the small little home Kai came from, the colors of the birds, the models so close to the different types of animals… just everything. The only thing I feel they could have done better would be the Monitor Lizards who feel like their textures aren't really that good. They feel a bit too flat.Oh my god, the voices! We have a lot of very big names in the cast like Leonard Nimoy, Samuel L. Jackson, Jenifer Lewis, Jeff Goldblum, and Jim Cummings. Each and every one of the voices brings life to the characters making them very believable. At some points, I forgot we were even talking about birds and they were real people. The script and way they talked was just that good.