Raising a baby: funny! Delivering a baby: not so much. Until now.

Here’s the setup of Storks: In this universe, storks are out of the baby-creation and delivery business. Instead, they’ve pivoted to delivering goods, à la Amazon or Jet, ever since they were compelled to raise a baby themselves when they couldn’t find (aka deliver) said infant to her parents. When that baby, now an 18 year old named Tulip, sets the antiquated baby-making machine into action and creates a newborn, one stork (voiced by Adam Sandberg) is challenged to deliver this surprising creation to her intended family.

By and large, the movie is a winner for all ages. My entire family loved this film, and my kids are ages 6, 15 and 21. It’s that good. And, it’s absent most parental concerns like profanity, scares, alcohol or violence. In fact, my older kids give the film extra points for including a socially conscious montage of families with babies of all sorts, including interracial and same-sex couples.  

For all the good, though, a couple of recurring moments made me cringe. First, the storks refer to Tulip as “Orphan Tulip.” Tulip responds, “Just call me Tulip, ‘Orphan Tulip’ hurts my heart.” The line is delivered to evoke a laugh at the storks’ insensitivity, but I couldn’t help but think about adopted or foster children who might be seeing the film and wondering if it wouldn’t hurt their hearts, too. 

And second, the Boss has a bit of the Queen of Hearts in him – he uses small birds as balls to occupy his leisure activities: against their will, these tiny birds are paddle balls, golf balls and Newton’s cradle balls. Ouch. Cringe.

Those moments aside, this film is tailor-made for parents on so many levels. Essentially, the notion is that we all melt when we see a baby. Something overtakes us that makes us just want to love on a snuggly-wuggly, widdle-biddy baby to the point of being ridiculous. Storks screenwriter Nicholas Stoller – who is behind the recent Muppets movies as well as the Neighbors movies – has really homed in on how to make a movie that appeals to parents... and kids.

My daughter’s 15-year-old friend watched the movie with us and after, I overheard the girls saying Storks had nailed the parents in our community. They’re referring to the movie’s secondary plot about an only child raised by career-obsessed parents who work from home – and what the girls meant is they see a lot of parents who are home but not “there,” too occupied with their own life to pay attention to their kids.

The fact that Storks calls moms and dads out on distracted parenting is exceptional. The film’s purpose seems to be a screaming attempt to get parents to put their phones and computers down and pay attention to their kids. To that end, Storks delivers in the most exceptional way: creating an entertaining movie that appeals to all ages, while providing a message that is for the parents only.