Open Season (PG)

Oct 13 2006 By Graham Young, Birmingham Mail

ANOTHER month, another animation featuring loads of animals.

If you miss this by accident or design, the inferior Barnyard is also coming along with weekend preview screenings tomorrow before opening in a week's time. Such releases are another example of a lack of imagination from a Hollywood not prepared to take risks.

In fairness, pairing Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher in a live-action movie would have had me dreading it.

But here they try to make the most of some fairly middling material in a film about hunting animals.

Lion King director Rogers Allers is joined by Jill Culton and Anthony Stacchi making their debuts, but this is like 'two' many directors spoiling the broth.

Lawrence plays Boog, a grizzly bear tourist attraction who sleeps in a garage.

But when he's forced back into the wild after encountering mule deer Elliot (Kutcher), his life is put at risk. Aside from an adventurous white-water rafting sequence, this is a pale alternative to two of the year's other animated hits, Ice Age 2 and Over the Hedge.

Gary Sinise is the villain of the piece as sadistic hunter Shaw but it's the morally dubious pilfering/vomit sequence which leaves the biggest sour taste.