Animal United

Genre: Animation

Starring the Voices of:         Jim Broadbent (Harry Potter & the Half-blood Prince)

James Corden (Gavin & Stacey)

Billy Beach ( … Animal United)

This one I walked right into. With all the excitement of a 3-year old that got Santa for Christmas, I took bad instincts to a movie hall in expectation of one grand animation. Was I disappointed? Yes. Was I highly disappointed? No. Let’s just say my instincts have lost their animal. Yeah, let’s just say that.

For which I have managed to come up with a take-home quote:

If a movie ‘don’t’  catch your attention in the first 5 minutes, ditch it . . .

If an animation ‘don’t’ in the first 2.5 minutes, RUN!

Hey, slow up, tiger . . .
I'm not asking you to take my own advice . . .

Well, you could  . . . if the last time you went to the gym (you really don’t need to recall) you saw something that looked like a lion but you weren’t quite sure, doing 12km/hour on the treadmill, embarrassing your daily unmentionable average? Or, if you walked into your salon for the you know, regular Saturday hair-and-gossip session, and found an elephant, fresh out of a blonde job by the way, sitting in your favourite chair, getting a haircut from - a Meercat . . . My guess is you’re not going anywhere. Plus don’t you want to hear about the Mafia in the Animal Kingdom?

Well, then, here's how it works . . . Or how about a quick trivia, to start with:

What do you get when you cross a vegan Lion, a giraffe who put the G in Diva, a Meercat (I presume you’ve met), an educated Monkey, a cocky Cockerel, and a white Polar Bear (nothing fancy, except location: Middle of a Forest)?
Answer: They call it Animal United for a reason.

And united they were. Ok, people, seriously, isn’t it about time we stopped and thought about the things we were doing to the things we thought didn’t matter just for the things we thought mattered? Don’t read that again. Just think: Sex Education! (I’m quite the Charmer, aren’t I?)

Rephrase: think sex education and how difficult it was – or is (you’d be surprised) for your parents to give ‘the talk’. Well, put that in retrospect and sub sex education for global warming and its hazardous effects on the planet. Too much talk? Let's make this easy . . . 

In their words, we are endangering our species, endangering our planet and well, hello, endangering our lives, as well. It’s a nasty chain reaction, we have started to do the damage, we have started trying to repair the damage, but there are those of us out there who either don’t know the extent of the damage we have done and are doing, or don’t care, or like Humpty Dumpty prefer the view from the fence (you do recall the rest being history, right?)

At the risk of sounding like an activist, here’s a snider:

If you'd rather hang a tusk than a Raphael on your wall, this one's for you. If in your opinion, fur looks better on two shoulders than on four legs, well . . . this one’s for you, too, my pretty. If you think some parts of Mother Earth look better in 3D as homes to 5-star exotic holiday locations than natural wildlife habitat, or you really don’t know why all those wild animals exist are let loose to begin with, the general idea is that (repeat after me) this one is equally for you! And if you’re an animal activist, again, this one you’d like! In the end, it's an animal rampage. Give ‘em back their food and their water, else . . .  fear not, they don't exactly take over the world. Mercifully. This movie is not that corny!

Expect no real thrills, though. A couple of belly laughs here and there. But that’s about it. Then again, it’s a good excuse for an education you most likely didn’t get in school with all your finesse, and you don’t have to sit in a boring Science class to get it. Perks? Almost. In advance, though, I do beg your pardon on the corny sound tracks. I will certainly let Disney off after this one. Give me their over-bearing music over the under-bearing do-we-really-have-to-make-music-for-this-movie tracks on offer!

So. . . Scene or Sin? It falls somewhere down the line and all things considered, not the least of which is the thousand and ten animations that outdid themselves to outdo themselves. I think Animators want to take a sort of back seat this year. Then again, we are looking forward to a couple of hard hits, aren’t we?  Collateral damage: make it a 2.5 out of 5.

Popcorn: Just before you toss that can of beer over your shoulder, think again . . .

Or better yet, why would you take me seriously? Go see for yourself . . .