Aaron's "The Bird Sanctuary" Review

If there's one life-changing lesson I had to take away from Bird Sanctuary, it is this: Never make a movie that's less interesting than your personality in the community. Call me a cynic, but Tuna's notoriety in the community works against him rather violently here, overshadowing most of the comedic possibilities of the movie and constantly reminding me throughout its runtime that he has made far better, funnier, and more deserving of his specific talents and sense of humor. To this end Bird Sanctuary ultimately works against itself even when it transcends the basic joke movie premise that got Jon Barton so snippy in his infamous review. When it's being lowbrow and intentionally lazy, you smirk and allow Tuna the self-indulgence, but when its transient "epic" sensibilities return to the forefront and the plot comes back from its vacation, it only clashes with the crappy-but-funny style and reminds you of what Tuna could have done with this movie if he'd made it on the big scale he half-heartedly keeps coming back to. Bird Sanctuary tries to have it both ways and ends up second-guessing itself to death.

I know, I know, I've been promising Tuna a somewhat positive review of this movie for something like eighteen months now. I enjoyed it on a basic entertainment level back when it came out, but even then it never really came together in my mind, and I can't remember ever feeling genuinely amused by its antics. It's one of those movies where I want to give the director the credit for the movie, but it's such a botched opportunity and hurts itself at so many corners that it would only be a sympathy review. Even so, I'm reluctant to bash, as Barton pretty much covered the straight review of Bird Sanctuary's narrative failings and wasted comedic potential and all that in so many negative words. I can't bring myself to feel very strongly about the narrative side roads Tuna keeps going down to get a joke or two, and what seems like a lack of faith or, really, interest in the movie as a whole. He obviously cared about it at one point, and thought it would be a fun project to do, but at the end of the day it feels phoned in, haphazardly assembled from the pieces he and Heavy J were inspired enough to actually finish.

The story would sound ridiculously complex in a serious attempt to describe it. The fact is that there's a main plot that comes into focus every once in a while, but only so the movie can end at some point or another. A mad scientist has performed experiments on his canary Bobo, and something goes wrong, turning the bird evil and giving him extraordinary powers, which he decides not to use in favor of pooping on everything he can. Meanwhile (and by "meanwhile", I mean "when the plot feels like it"), an Arabian pot-seller named Tarbash is blamed for one of Bobo's poop attacks and has a conversation with a copy of his Ramu actor inside of a default pot in the default cave scene. Also, some cops are tracking the canary, and the mad scientist and his admittedly funny gay lab assistant pop up occasionally, once to advance the plot by creating a killer superpowered cat to take care of the canary. Then there's a renegade cop, and a Bongo character who waits for the bus, and Tuna and Qaz make an appearance at one point, because why not?

Actually, it feels like Tuna is everywhere in this movie, which again is the main problem it has. It's impossible to seperate his community persona from the characters, and the whole thing is just more confusing because half the time he isn't even trying to do it himself. Several characters he voices simply become extensions of his half-assed "do I really want to be here" comedic monologue, only not as funny and kind of jarring. Some individual moments are amusing, Tuna's acting talent makes several lines funnier than they'd normally be, and the lowbrow humor got some actual laughs from me (the gratuitous shot of the cat's pink asshole in one of the lab scenes comes to mind). I found myself appreciating several really good moments, but as soon as I try to widen my scope beyond specific instances and think of even individual scenes, much less Bird Sanctuary as a movie, they seem to constantly be at odds with each other, like Tuna just ended up throwing the ingredients together and hoping for the best.

And that's what it all comes down to. It's a jarring film, oscillating between no-effort jokes and animation and occasional attempts at bringing some kind of, you know, movie together, and the friction ruins whatever good vibe Bird Sanctuary's got going. The word "salvage" came to mind several times, and I couldn't help but feel that Tuna started a project he really didn't want to finish or work on, and he doesn't want to be here, and the characters don't want to be here, and the end result is something we acknowledge for its effort and occasional good moments, and then leave behind to the 3DMM website archives as quickly as we can so we don't do the uncomfortable analysis on it that turns out reviews like this one.

Critical Score: 52/100.
Personal Score: 45/100.