Co-written by the white-hot Mike White (TV’s “White Lotus”) and the film’s co-director Benjamin Renner of the Academy Award-nominated “Ernest & Celestine,” “Migration” tells the lukewarm, if beautifully animated, visually inventive and often funny tale of a family of mallards that must overcome the timidity of its patriarch. Mack (Kumail Nanjiani) is a duck, who is overprotective of his wife Pam (Elizabeth Banks) and their children, teenage son Dax (Caspar Jennings) and pint-sized, preteen daughter Gwen (Tresi Gazal), both of whom are eager to establish their independence.

Mack and family live safely in a New England pond with Mack’s sleepy, senile Uncle Dan (Danny DeVito). But when another family of blue-winged ducks, part of a migratory flock on its way to Jamaica, stop at the pond to rest, Pam, Dax and Gwen are inspired to migrate there as well in order to expand their horizons and see more of the world. Dax also falls for a young blue-winged traveler. On their way, Mack and crew make a stop in Manhattan, where they must navigate around dangerous high-rises. Uncle Dan gets into a fight with a flock of pigeons over a sandwich in Central Park, and we meet the feisty, one-footed pigeon gang leader Chump (Awkwafina). Chump introduces Mack and family to Delroy (Keegan-Michael Key), a Jamaican parrot kept in a cage by an evil chef.

This is the rather minimal plot of the latest effort from Illumination, the animation company that has brought us the “Despicable Me” series. Renner, who co-directs with animator Guylo Homsy (“Despicable Me 2”), brings the film to life in terms of visuals and sight gags. But the story, which seems like a backlash against helicopter parenting, is one-note and ambivalent. In the most memorable sequence, the amateur travelers get caught in a rainstorm and are taken under wing, so to speak, by a cleaver-beaked heron named Erin (Carol Kane). Herons are known to “tear apart” and devour ducks, and the film plays with the idea. Mack, Pam and family are allowed to share an old cabin with Erin and an old male heron. But the film never really decides if Erin wants to help the ducks or eat them.

Kids will certainly get a kick out of the “Tom and Jerry” level of violent action. In a Mack-supporting depiction of the dangers of modern urban life, Chump has close encounters with New York City buses and a scooter. In fact, much of the action in “Migration” just proves Mack’s point. The world is a dangerous place for kids. But it seems like the film also wants to pander shamelessly to kids and let them think they’re right. The visuals are the undeniable strong suit of “Migration,” especially images of the family flying up in the clouds. Scenes in which Mack and friends encounter ducks practicing yoga at a spa-like duck farm recall the current Netflix stop-motion release “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” a better film with a stronger story. “Migration” references a new plot line, a trip to the South Pole with a band of misplaced penguins, over its end credits. Do we really want to go?

(“Migration” contains ducks in peril and rude humor)

“Migration”

Rated PG. At the AMC Boston Common and suburban theaters. Grade: B