OIAF 2022: Unicorn Wars Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Ottawa International Animation Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) is a festival that is hosted in Canada’s capital city, Ottawa. The yearly festival is the oldest and largest animation festival in North America. It features, in addition to feature films, documentary works, short films, conferences, VR exhibits, and more multimedia animation festivities. 

Directed by Spanish filmmaker Alberto Vázquez, Unicorn Wars an absolute riot and laced with vibrant colors, a heart-pumping synth styled score, resulting in a bombastic journey to follow on screen. The story follows a community of war obsessed teddy bears who are knee deep in an ancient religious war against the unicorns of the forest who are almost mythical for the teddy bears as they almost never see the unicorns unless they are hunting them down. The film delivers a satire of the ridiculousness of war and the role that religion plays into it. While the satire is rather straightforward in terms of execution, the impact may not be there for all audiences but it is teddy bears and unicorns.

The film aims to shock the viewer early on as its premise is nuts. Many of the teddy bears are pretty messed up, led by a drill sergeant who is clearly a parody of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket. Out of that bunch, the story focuses on a pair of brothers named Tubby and Bluey. The brothers come in with a lot of emotional baggage as much of the story is dedicated to emotional flashbacks to establish why they are the way they are. The multiple flashbacks work to create emotional stakes and while they may be jarring at first, they ultimately work to deepen the film’s narrative.

Over the course of the film, things get increasingly outrageous. Sure, it may be animated, but Unicorn Wars is a very hard R, featuring plenty of violence while not relaxing on cursing or nudity. Featuring several incredibly gruesome battle sequences, the ridiculousness of it all may put off some audiences but others are sure to find them absolutely hilarious. The film is just downright unhinged fun and features several holy war style sequences that are right up there with some of the most entertaining moments on the big screen this year. 

Alberto Vázquez’s Unicorn Wars is a wild ride that has something meaningful to say which is always welcome but is so much more than that. It is as violent and as funny as it can be, considering it features unicorns and teddy bears going head-to-head. Quite the premise! Its unique characters, comfortably stylistic animation, and great score all make this one a well-rounded success. Seriously, that score is really good. 

*still courtesy of GKIDS*

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Brennan Dubé

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