Review of Ferdinand (2017) by Wayne K — 02 Mar 2018

A hopelessly lacklustre animation from Blue Sky Studios, the company responsible for a long line of increasingly poor Ice Age sequels, I'm not even sure it's supposed to be funny, since huge chunks of time pass by without even as much as a smile being raised.

Almost every joke is a running gag which started out not being funny and then proceeds to be run into the ground. The obligatory quirky sidekick is little more than a repetitive annoyance, most of the characters are cheap stereotypes, the ending can be guessed within minutes, and the film breaks out its dance montage within 20 minutes.

John Cena does his best, but he's playing the lead character who wants to do their own thing despite everyone else telling them to conform, which seems to be the default status for every children's film protagonist, and it does absolutely nothing new with this premise.

It's a sad indicator of the state of animated films that this gets an Academy Award nomination and The Lego Batman Movie doesn't.