Dir. Gary Chapman, 2005, UK, 109 mins
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Ricky Gervais, Tim Curry, John Cleese, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Laurie, Rik Mayall
Review by Sam Hall
Valiant is an animated feature that tells the story of a little wood pigeon with big dreams, voiced by a glittering array of British actors, including Ewan McGregor in the lead role. There’s a lot riding on this film, as Valiant marks the first phase in the renaissance of Ealing Studios and heralds the creation of Europe’s first full-scale digital animation studio.
A consortium including Fragile Films and Manhattan Loft Corporation bought Ealing Studios, Britain ‘s oldest and most well-known film studio, in April 2000. The consortium stated their aim was to “save and regenerate Ealing Studios as the home of British cinema”. In June 2001 it received planning permission to develop the site into a next-generation studio for television, digital and traditional film-making companies.
Ealing Studios is the oldest working film studio in the world. The site was originally acquired in 1902. In the early 1930s, Ealing Studios was established and in 1938, Michael Balcon joined as Head of Production and a period of creativity began that would last until the late 1950s. Films such as The Ladykillers, Passport to Pimlico and Kind Hearts and Coronets contributed to a heyday for British film production, before the Studios were bought by the BBC as a base for television production in 1959.
The Studios have recently accommodated high profile films and television including An Ideal Husband , Star Wars – Episode 2 , The Importance of Being Earnest and The Royle Family .
Over twenty companies and production units have already made Ealing their home, including Vanguard Animation, the new company behind Valiant . Vanguard Animation is a division of the American parent company Vanguard Films, the producers of, amongst others, Shrek , Seven Years in Tibet and The Tuxedo . Valiant is the first CGI film to be made in Europe , and will be distributed by Walt Disney in North America . Disney also holds worldwide merchandising, soundtrack, and video game rights; big money is riding on this film.
It’s the eve of D-Day. Valiant is an undersized wood pigeon who dreams of serving in the elite flying squadron, so makes his way to London and enlists in the Royal Pigeon Service. Aided by Bugsy (Gervais), his new and rather mangy best pigeon pal and a troop of other misfits, Valiant’s squadron end up being entrusted one of the most important missions of the war.
Almost unbelievably this film is based on real events – thousands of pigeons were used as messengers during the Second World War, as during communication black-outs they could carry messages home silently and unspotted by the enemy. Falconers from the Black Forest were even recruited and stationed along the coast of France to stop the pigeons and their messages getting through. As a note at the end of the film tells you – the first animals to receive Dickin Medals were pigeons.
This is probably as close to reality as an animated World War II film gets. A very traditional war movie, complete with black and white newsreel footage, plus a slapstick training montage sequence containing birds with goggles, masks and bomber jackets, and a pigeon love story where Valiant falls for a nursing dove. There are even the anachronistic movie clichés – Germans are played as battle scarred, scary and slightly effete hawks (Tim Curry is suitably menacing as ever as General Von Talon).
Vanguard Animation is grooming Valiant to be a CGI-animated blockbuster on the scale of those made in Hollywood with a US$40 million budget, for only half the cost. The production values are certainly slick, the birds’ feathers are very realistic, (real-looking fur, feathers and fire have long been one of the big challenges of CGI) but maybe the story, if not jingoistic certainly very British-audience specific, will put a more international audience off. It seems strange that the British director Gary Chapman and his American co-producers haven’t come up with a more ‘everyman’ type of story for a first feature with so much riding on it.
The international success of the currently best known British animation company, Aardman Animations, suggests that British made animated features can find this worldwide audience, as long as (like in Chicken Run ) there are some star voices. This is full of top quality Brit ones, but Ewan McGregor is somewhat upstaged by Ricky Gervais, and whether Gervais is well-known enough internationally will remain to be seen.
There is a lot of historical detail and self-referencing that will most likely go straight over children’s heads, but amuse their parents. For example the title sequence is very reminiscent of TV’s Dad’s Army . There are enough gross-out moments to keep children giggling, particularly in some regurgitation scenes, suffice to say that Valiant finds a very unique way to carry a vital message. As a piece of entertaining nonsense, it’s fun, but whether it will be a smash hit to rival Chicken Run, Toy Story or its biggest threat, Fox’s Robots, is the question. Whether it succeeds or not, you’ll never think of pigeons as just ‘rats with wings’ again!
