Review of Animals United (2010) by Alan B — 22 Dec 2010

Took my 4 year old son to see this, as he loves Rhinos, had seen the trailer and therefore wanted to go.

It's not a typical animated film, certainly a lot more downbeat and less madcap than anything from Pixar or Dreamworks. I don't think I laughed at any of the humour, the only character to even raise a smile was the Tasmanian Devil (and that in a very puerile way). The film was very slow and there was not a lot to keep me interested. However, my son loved seeing all of the animals, maybe he was at just the right age where merely seeing some of his favourite animals there on the screen was enough for him to enjoy it.

Towards the end there were a couple of scenes that brought everything together and I felt the last 10 minutes or so were actually very good, with some interesting images. What other film has a scene where whales transport elephants to New York in their mouths? Wouldn't you find that fascinating to watch as a 4-year old? I think children up to the age of maybe 6 would enjoy this, any old enough to understand properly what's going on (or not) maybe a bit bored throughout.

Oh, and James Corden's voice got very annoying after a while ...