Reviewed by Jon Barton

From a critic's point of view I felt obliged to check out the rest of the film festival, and while my thoughts remain varied my main gripe has to be with Tuna's new supposed comedy, Bird Sanctuary. It reeked of potential and had a lot going for it, but instead it seems to consistently spit on the material at hand. Default scenery, badly made HMCs and drawn-out set pieces are not what a comedy should boast. On the other hand, despite numerous attempts at failed humour certain elements really did shine, such as certain character-based humour. The evil scientist is so ludricrously overblown ("I have programmed my bird Bobo to DO MY BIDDING" is a hilarious line) that you can't help but chuckle, whilst the cop's retorts are also comical enough to make you smile. Sadly though that's all that Tuna's weak comedy can really offer, which is a damn shame.

What's wrong with Bird Sanctuary, what's really wrong with it, is not so much a case of trying too hard as it is astonishingly underachieving. The directorial effort is shockingly lazy, made even worse considering this was co-directed by Heavy J. Cuts are shoddy, angles are non-existent (even during the rare HM scenery) and the action itself is simply put, boring. Watching default characters having a conversation next to a vase stand was all fun and games back in 97 but now it shows it's age. The first Vlarion, that also used default scenery but isn't blessed with actual voice actors is more entertaining. And what's worse is that Tuna has made a real meal out of these scenes and written it all into the script, making it seem patchy and best and lazy at most. Indeed, the notion of antagonist Tarbash owning a pot selling business is simply to clarify the default vase stand's relevance in the story, and if this is unfair or false then there's nothing in the film to suggest otherwise.
To be fair to Tuna, he is an incredibly talented voice actor, and his efforts do not go unappreciated. I did laugh at it in places, and so at the expense of giving it a higher mark for this reason I should say that categorically expecting too much from Bird Sanctuary will leave you sorely disappointed. If however, you're aware of Tuna's work but haven't spent the time out to see any then you're better off hunting down VGN2 and cacking yourself at his Atari cameo rather than this: an excellent take on a genre with some neat ideas but corrupted by cheap moviemaking and overly brought out humour that stands to essentially serve little or no purpose at all. Disappointing at best. Having said that, it's better than Killing Spree.

4/10