by Samuel Nichols, Contributing Writer
When you think of adult animation what comes to mind? The Simpsons? Rick & Morty? Hopefully the long-running masterpiece known as Bob’s Burgers. Usually, this genre is centered around humor that’s a little more mature with some adult themes. An animated show or movie can challenge the standard of a silly “Saturday Morning” cartoon. Angel Studios’ Animal Farm barely even attempts at tackling the source material’s difficult themes.
With their farm about to be sold and them led to slaughter, a group of animals rebel and take control of the farm away from their human owners. No longer under human control, the animals rejoice in their freedom. But almost immediately there are questions about what the rules should be on the newly formed, titular, Animal Farm. A struggle begins between pigs like Lucky (Gaten Matazarro), Napoleon (Seth Rogen), and Snowball (LaVerne Cox). But ultimately the focus is to take care of the animals and put them first no matter what. With mega-corporation boss Pilkington (Glen Close) looking with intent to take over, she aims to take advantage of the pigs and the other animals like Boxer the horse (Woody Harrelson) and Carl the sheep (Jim Parsons). Conflicts arise about what freedom really allows an animal or pig to want and compromises are made. Will Animal Farm survive?
Without this cast, this movie would be cooked. Matazarro is an excellent lead, and he gets a few moments of conflict to play as Lucky discovering the terrible deeds done by his fellow pigs. But he is the only noteworthy performance. Rogen, Harrelson, Close, and Parsons each get one emotion max and do fine with it, but it’s like asking a horse to only trot instead of sprint, gallop, or jump. There are a number of talented actors in this movie, who I hope got paid enough to justify being in these flat, one-note roles not written well enough for an original community theater production.
Speaking of writing, wow is this a drop off from the source material. Now it’s been at least 15 years since I read George Orwell’s novella, but the impression it left stuck with me. Power creates the toxic fruit of selfishness, which kills community. While I won’t say this version completely throws away those morals, it certainly doesn’t fully commit. Ultimately this Animal Farm is more of a fairy tale of coming together as a group and doing unto others as we’d want done to us. Not a bad messages objectively. But making a movie with Animal Farm as your title demands you commit hard to the original themes.
Perhaps the issue lies in the fact that this feels like a kids movie. The humans are clear villains, and the downtrodden animals are heroes. No commentary about political systems exist. The brutality of death and violence is swept away for off-screen kills. I understand this movie is marketed for kids but if you wanted a toothless animal movie why defang a powerful and prescient story like Animal Fam?
Right on the surface is the animation style as well. By no means is this an ugly movie, but it does seem to heavily rely on shock value moments rather than consistent quality imagery. There are some well-made shots and moments that might catch you by surprise, but the rest of the movie is unremarkable. The animation is on par with early 2000s DreamWorks films, which is not a compliment in this instance.
Rating: Didn’t Like It
Animal Farm is currently playing in theaters
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