Storks is intermittently enjoyable but settles into an average groove

REVIEW: While intermittently enjoyable Storks is charged with a needy, noisy, nervous energy that soon has it dashing off in every direction at once.

Storks (G)

Directors: Nicholas Stoller, Doug Sweetland

Starring: the voices of Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Kelsey Grammer, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele.

Rating: 2

A bundle bungled

Though blessed with a strong voice cast and a generous production budget, the pre-eminently perky new animated comedy Storks hardly makes the most of the many resources at its disposal.

Indeed, while it can sometimes be as intermittently enjoyable as The Secret Life of Pets, Storks settles into an average groove much earlier on.

You will immediately identify the inspired stuff on offer when it does burst into view, but the gaps between such sequences can often get annoyingly shrill and repetitive.

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows characters Nate Gardner, voiced by Anton Starkman, left, and Henry Gardner voiced by Ty Burrell in a scene from "Storks." (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

The core concept certainly carries its fair share of potential. Contrary to widespread knowledge, storks are no longer in the business of delivering babies to expectant parents.

Instead, the birds have gotten all businesslike, and now run a FedEx-like parcel delivery service from a dispatch bunker high above the clouds.

So far, so interesting, huh? So you would think. Unfortunately, Storks is charged with a needy, noisy, nervous energy that soon has it dashing off in every direction at once.

Discerning viewers over the age of about 9 will find it hard to ignore the film is in one heck of a rush to get to nowhere in particular.

It hardly helps that while Storks has a stack of jokes to churn through, very few of them are truly funny in any way. What should be punchlines sound like catchphrases that will catch on.

Those gags that do actually work are often diluted by the two dull leading characters — a stressed corporate stork named Junior (Andy Samberg) and his goofy human offsider Tulip (Katie Crown) — that invariably get to tell them.

As for the sappy secondary plot about a neglected child and his preoccupied parents, the less said the better.

So what does unreservedly work in Storks’ favour? Just the one thing: a pack of wolves that can use the power of gymnastics to become anything they wish (a bridge, a boat, a plane etc.).

You have to see the concept in play to truly get the joke, but it leaves you hoping these guys get their shot at their own spin-off like those penguins from Madagascar did.

Originally published as Storks is intermittently enjoyable but settles into an average groove