The trailer was a bit sketchy. The movie is based around the first three of a series of books called The Owls of Ga'Hoole. The story, without spoiliers, focuses around Soren, a young barn owl, his brother Kludd, and their younger sister, Eglantine, along with some owls that Soren encounters along the way. Soren and Kludd are kidnapped and taken to St. Aggeles orphanage, where they encounter the Pure Ones, led by an owl called Metalbeak. Metalbeak was horribly injured in a battle with one of the Guardians, and wears a metal mask as he lost his beak during the fight, hence the name. The Guardians are warriors that live in a place called the Ga'Hoole tree. Soren learns of what is happening at St. Aggeles and needs to find the Guardians in order to stop what's going on there, but he's only a brancher and cannot fully fly yet. More I can't say about the plot without spoiling.
As for the setting, it's somewhere around Austrailia, though the owls are from various parts of the world. Time-wise it's set after the fall of the human race, and the world has largely returned to nature, though the owls and other animals are generally anthropomorphized in the fact that they talk and have facial expressions that nature does not allow owls to have. This is primarily for the audience's benefit. Beyond that, the animation is superb. You're seeing what looks like real birds in a realistic environment.
The movie itself is not a typical children's movie. Some people have complained that they took their "7 year old kid" to see the movie and the kid was upset. The fight scenes are pretty intense without actually showing blood, and there's a dark tone to a lot of what goes on. It's a lot more serious of a movie than you'd expect from the trailer.
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