Where do you stand on the storks-deliver-babies myth — Innocuous idiocy or dangerous propaganda? Is the origin a convenient euphemism for parents who didn’t want to explain conception to children? Was this ever a thing? What do they do in lands without storks? I could be wrong, but I think “storks deliver babies” is tongue-in-cheek myth – one nobody ever sold or believed but got repeated by a culture afraid of discussing sex. Again, I could be wrong.
It seems Storks have shied away from baby production (don’t ask) and delivery in recent years; a delivery malfunction two decades previous put a halt to the service – so where do babies come from, now? Unasked, unanswered. What is important is Storks currently deliver packages, not babies, from their cloud-supported warehouse aerie. And they’re darn good at it. I don’t know what you pay the stork population for this service – maybe that’s how you get free shipping at Amazon. Perhaps I keep missing the “avian 3-5 day” delivery option button. That would explain why it took the Hamilton soundtrack three weeks to get here. Three weeks, Amazon. Three weeks. WTF?!
The senior storker is Junior (voice of Andy Samberg); big cheese Hunter (Kelsey Grammer) calls him up to dangle a promotion to boss – this part is great – the mere mention of the “b”-word prompts a personal atomic detonation moment. Of course, Junior doesn’t even know why he wants the boss job, which is a thoughtful subplot unto itself. Still – mind blown. All he has to do is fire Tulip (Katie Crown), the one last undeliverable remnant human of the baby delivery days. Being a good guy and firing somebody is forbidden in a family film, so Junior hides Tulip in a forgotten section of the company, the mailroom.
Meanwhile on Earth, tag team real estate agents Henry and Sarah (Ty Burrell and Jennifer Aniston) are too busy being work awesome to bend even the slightest for their very bored only child, Nate (Anton Starkman). Nate wishes he had a brother to play with – I think we can see where this is headed, no? What sets Storks apart from run-of-the-mill cartoons is the following scene where the film allows Henry and Sarah to discover what they’ve been missing out — and the parents discover a wonderful thing: when they pay attention to their child, the world gets infinitely better. Don’t let anything else 
about Storks distract you; no matter how many times this film gives you the bird, this “human” family moment is the main message of the film.
I enjoyed both those storylines and I haven’t even talked about the wolfpack, which was my favorite part of the film. The wolfpack shenanigans while chasing Junior and Tulip represent my favorite “five-minute character” of the year. I’ll leave it at that.
For a universal genetic concept, the baby theme is oddly limited. There are entire groups of people babies wouldn’t appeal to and entire groups of people babies shouldn’t appeal to (like, say, if my teen daughter were really into this film, I might be a little creeped out). On top of that, 2016 is proving to be a robust year for animated film, so Storks will almost certainly get lost in the shuffle. I hope it doesn’t; this is certainly one of the better efforts this year and a film I want to see again one day.
♪Hunter I know you’re going to be upset
‘Cause I’m your wing-picked replacement
But you should know by now
This is a cartoon
You always told me Tulip was wrong
To can her fast I gotta be strong
Turns out I have a heart
And her happy’s worth saving
Yeah, I know you warned me all about
Maybe that carrot I could do without
We gotta go right now and I don’t mean maybe
Hunter, no speech, we’ll be right back
Hunter, no speech, trailed by wolfpack
But I’ve made up my mind, I’m schlepping this baby♫
Rated PG, 89 Minutes
D: Nicholas Stoller, Doug Sweetland
W: Nicholas Stoller
Genre: Myth reinvention
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: New parents, ornithologists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Baby haters
♪ Parody inspired by “Papa Don’t Preach”
