Sadly Over-hyped

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

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.

This is Triggerfish Animation's first feature film. It's a pretty good first effort, but the inexperience shows. A particular problem was the shoestring budget which meant some shots had to go through to the finished film with known flaws, and the story was patchy in places. This film could have done with some pick-ups to fill in those holes. The story is pretty generic, but for the most part well told. The animation is bright and sparkly - the shot of the Falls and into the tree is brilliant. Voice acting is generally good. A shout-out goes to the score: this is in a class of its own, and really lifts the movie. Well done to the first-time composer Bruce Retief. The film could have done with a few more months in post-production: tightening up some of the gags, filling in a few story holes, polishing up the animation... then it would have warranted an 8/10. As it stands it's a solid 6, particularly due to the score.Zambezia is not a movie which will be frequently watched again. What it does signal is intent from the new kid on the block from Africa. There's real potential from this little studio in Cape Town,and their next films look like they are hitting their stride (Khumba, plus the next in development: "Sea Monster" with an almost watercolour animation aesthetic. Looks amazing. Pixar 2?)

8.2 of 10. The second awesome film of 2012 Samuel L. Jackson is in (as a key character voice), and it's very different from Django Unchained, although there's an underlying common bond in working together in each film.Besides making you want to pet birds, maybe not the vulture-like marabous, the animation doesn't get nearly enough credit. The lizards are bordering on life-like and the waterfall and mist (not to mention sand and other colored dusts) simply has never been better outside of actual filming of waterfalls. Even the bird poo is as gross as in real life.As for the character voices, I was concerned that Nemoy and Jackson would dominate the audio and distract from the story. Instead, they both give surprisingly understated performances where you need to listen closely to identify them. Even Goldblum deserves credit because I still don't know which character he voiced.Dear Oscars/Academy, you failed us again. Do any of you actually watch animations/cartoons?

'Zambezia', the new south African animated film is an obvious low budget animated feature, you wont see any ads on TV, and the animation looks 10 years old, but that's no reason to straight away hate on Zambezia, it's not one of those dubbed foreign trashy animated movies which have no single thing put into them apart from making money. Zambezia has a story, a plot, good characters. When it wants you to take it seriously you will take it seriously. When it wants you to laugh you will not be sitting there rolling your eyes.The movie is another one of those typical 'parent letting go of child' kind of animated movies, which is possibly the most cliché type of character development seen in any kids movie. But I guess there's good reason for the situation, it just doesn't have it thrown in to make a plot (hint hint Ice Age 4). But I thought the characters were good, not really that deep, but good, nothing to really complain about.The movie has a nice soundtrack, and I thought the visuals of the landscape were absolutely brilliant. The humour isn't bad, with a lot of jokes that hit. Nothing laugh out loud funny of course, but still much better than the humour in 'Ice Age 4'.There are some obvious similaries to 'Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole' and possibly the movie was made with the intention to 'duel' Rio, but it still has originality, the bad guy for one, is new, and intimidating enough to be a good villain.Zambezia is a perfectly good movie for kids and adults, there's nothing wrong with it at all really, and it actually kind of surprised me. I think this movie takes much more risks than 'Ice Age 4', 'Rio', and many other current animated films.Go and see it, have a good time.