Film Review with Robert Mann – Animals United

20th December 2010

Animals United 3D **½
Animals United 2D **

The first of two computer animated family films (the second being next week’s Arthur and the Great Adventure) being released this Christmas that you may have never even heard of (both distributed by the same company – UK based distributor Entertainment Film Distributors), Animals United is a film that clearly seems set to try and capture some of the Christmas family moviegoing audience yet an apparent lack of marketing or publicity inevitably means that it will likely pass by ignored in favour of the bigger features on release.
On one hand this is a shame as it will be a classic case of the small film being overlooked in favour of the big blockbuster and this isn’t a film without some distinct strengths in its favour but, at the same time, if you don’t see it you probably won’t be missing much, it being a film that manages to live up to those films released by the big animation studios in some areas but not necessarily the ones that matter most. This doesn’t stop this from being an interesting film on some levels though. The inspiration here is from a much more unexpected source (for us at least) than many other computer animated films, being inspired by the 1949 children’s novel The Animal’s Conference (originally titled Die Konferenz der Tiere before it was translated to English) by Erich Kästner, the dean of German writers for children who won an international audience with a long series of stories of which ‘The Animal’s Conference’ is perhaps the funniest and the most serious. Produced for once not by a major American studio but by a German production company, following in the footsteps of last year’s Planet 51 in being made by a European production house, Animals United may well be on the cutting edge of CG animation for its home country but how is it likely to be viewed by moviegoers here in the UK?

Set in the Okavango Delta in Africa, a group of animals – including little mischievous meerkat Billy (voiced by James Corden) and his family; Billy’s best (and only pal), friendly lion Socrates (voiced by Stephen Fry); elephant Angie (voiced by Dawn French); giraffe Giselle (voiced by Joanna Lumley); and oracle monkey Bongo (voiced by Omid Djalili) – find themselves in a struggle for survival when the annual flood that normally arrives at a certain time every year fails to do so. With the water being essential to all the animals that live there, including the highly aggressive rhinos and buffalos, who find themselves in a fight every time even the slightest bit of water is found, Billy decides to find out what has happened to the water and, along with Socrates, set outs through the valley of death, discovering in the process the shocking truth about who is responsible for the water not coming – man. Meanwhile, all around the world the harm being caused by mankind to the environment is endangering many animals and some of them – including wise 700 year old turtles Winston (voiced by Jim Broadbent) and Winifred (voiced by Vanessa Redgrave); polar bear Sushi (voiced by Bella Hudson); French cockerel Charles (voiced by Andy Serkis); kangaroo Toby (voiced by Jason Donovan); Tasmanian devil Smiley – have set out on a journey to find a rumoured paradise where they will be safe from the wrath of humanity, a paradise that just happens to be the Delta. Realising that mankind is responsible for endangering all of them, the animals all decide to unite in an act of opposition to humanity’s treatment of the environment and those creatures that live within it, taking on first those responsible for damming the water in the Delta and then the world as they head to New York City to show the world that they won’t stand for man’s actions any longer.

For an animated feature that comes from a small animation studio, Animals United really doesn’t look bad at all. The animation on display here, which is a sort of blending of photorealistic and cartoony styles, actually looks quite striking and is certainly very pleasing to the eyes, being appropriately colourful, having plenty of texture and detail and delivering some extremely beautiful and realistic looking sweeping shots of wilderness, various types of landscapes from all over the world being depicted at various points in the film (including the cityscape of New York at the end). These sweeping shots gain much as well from the 3D, the application of 3D here actually being rather good. You can tell that this isn’t a poorly done conversion job but a proper 3D film with environments depicted on screen appearing to be right in front of you and the sweeping shots looking far more spectacular as a result of the extra dimension. This isn’t to say that the 3D is the best you will see as while certain parts do gain from it – the aforementioned sweeping shots and the occasional instance of gimmickry are examples of this – the extra dimension doesn’t add that much to the film as a whole and wastes lots of opportunities for 3D gimmickry, some things seeming so obvious yet apparently not to the filmmakers. That this film looks good is pretty much a given but sadly, like many other animated features from smaller companies, the film is missing the key ingredients that could make it really stand out. A Pixar movie isn’t considered a masterpiece simply because it boasts great animation but because it comes complete with a great story, a terrific sense of humour and real heart, all things that are low in supply in this film. At times it really seems like this film is unsure about what it is really trying to be, at some points coming across like a wacky animal based comedy complete with musical numbers, although low on gags that are actually funny, while at others the film takes on a very dark and doom laden tone and comes across almost preachy in the way it depicts the ways in which mankind damages the environment and puts across its message that what man is doing is wrong in the most unsubtle of fashion. With a concept that is hardly original and slapdash execution, the storyline is also lacking, the uncertainty of focus between its two contrasting aspects along with generally underwhelming writing robbing us of anything that is truly compelling or engaging, the plot we get creating a clear sense of been there-seen that. What’s more, the characters mostly seem to be stereotypes, the animals being cast in roles that are very familiar and nothing being done to shake things up at all and, with dialogue that is also rather weak, the rather impressive voice cast distinctly fails to impress, most of them barely featuring much at all anyway and when they do failing to add anything that couldn’t have been achieved with some unknown voicing the character. In particular, following in the footsteps of TV’s Compare the Market adverts which have made meerkats some of the most lovable of animals, James Corden’s stint as Billy just seems like a huge let down when compared with the character of Aleksandr Orlov from those adverts. The film also fails to be particularly funny, most the gags coming in the form of some very bad puns or Smiley farting, and is also only occasionally exciting, the overall film being one that will only really entertain younger viewers and leave many older ones rather bored. So, Animals United is definitely not a must see family film this Christmas but is it watchable enough that if you do decide to give it a go, it won’t be a particularly hard to watch film either.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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