Andy Serkis’ Animal Farm is Abominable: Review

Some movies are bad, and some movies suck all the life and joy out of a person’s soul. new animation animal farm It falls completely into the latter category. Directed by Andy Serkis and based on the original novel by George Orwell, this movie is a children’s movie, but it’s not for those with no taste or flair. This includes children around the world. Six-year-olds are all too familiar with this subject.

The screenplay was written by Nicholas Stoller (forget sarah marshall) indicates that someone has read the book at some point. The film begins with the animals on a financially bankrupt farm evicting humans by force and declaring sovereignty over the farm. Initially, they all held the belief that all animals are equal. The farm’s pigs, mainly under the guidance of Napoleon (Seth Rogen), take over management and survive on the pigs (sorry, sorry) while the other animals fray and starve. That is, until Serkis and Stoller hammered a message about happy endings and kindness into the story.

Yes, it’s a happy ending. Sorry for the spoiler, but about 15 minutes before the movie ends, animal farm This echoes Orwell’s chilling final line of the text: “The creatures outside looked like pigs to humans, then humans to pigs, and again pigs to humans. But already it was impossible to say which was which.”

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This is followed by a big action-driven climax in which the oppressed animals rebel against both the pigs and the humans and take back the farm for themselves. Lucky (Gaten Matarazzo), one of the few pigs who resists the new regime, harshly scolds Napoleon, saying, “The only truth that came out of you was a stink.” This is a callback to an earlier fart joke. Kids love it when political satire includes fart jokes.

Then comes the moral of the story. Lucky declares, “No one is always right,” and another pig concludes, “You know what’s always right? Helping each other.” Ending credits and a remix of Propeller Heads’ “History Replying” will play.

This tonal nightmare is released by Angel Studios, a distributor that primarily specializes in faith-oriented projects such as: sound of freedom and the chosen one. The Angel Studios website has an official merchandise shop for the movie. Frankly, it’s hard to decide which of the products is the most ignorant. A theater ticket that comes with a MAGA-colored red “Make Animal Farm Fiction Again” baseball cap or a special bottle of Boxer’s go-to glue with a picture of the character voiced by Woody Harrelson and the caption “Give 110%. Take 0%.”

The more you stare at it, the more you stare at it – “Giving is 110%. Receiving is 0%.” — I don’t really understand what that means. Is this intended as a witty joke about one of cinema’s most tragic characters? It’s certainly not funny. It certainly makes me feel sad. This describes the entire movie very well.

Although Orwell may have called the book a “fairy tale” when it was first published, its intended purpose was a political commentary on children’s entertainment. That’s part of the reason that’s causing this problem animal farm Skin-crawling and disgusting – the way it thoughtlessly distorts the original story’s intent and its impact. First attempt at adapting animal farm It was made into a CIA-funded film in 1954 as anti-communist propaganda. That’s at least a bit This is close to Orwell’s intended message.

There’s a vague effort here to twist animal farm‘ focuses on anti-capitalism, perhaps most explicitly setting the film in modern times. This means that the pigs fall prey to the temptation of “naughty juices” (Orwell said do not have It’s a cute word for alcohol, but more importantly it’s about shopping, like buying tablets, sports cars, and all sorts of fancy toys on credit. Attempting to reorient the core message is like grafting a horse’s tail onto a chicken’s butt: unnecessary and extremely cumbersome in execution. Especially considering how flimsy a lesson it ends up being.

The source of deep frustration here is the solidity of the voice actors, with some unconventional choices that are pretty fun on paper, such as Kathleen Turner as the grumpy donkey Benjamin and Kieran Culkin as Napoleon’s henchman Squealer. Almost everyone turns in useful work, but Glenn Close’s evil billionaire character sounds a bit undone hillbilly elegy And Seth Rogen does absolutely nothing to separate Napoleon from his own established identity. Rogen has been using some serious heat these days, thanks to Apple TV. studioThis makes his involvement in this project even more surreal. animal farm” feels like a joke from His Emmy Award-winning Hollywood parody.

In theory, the animation would be clean and inoffensive, and its depiction of the human world as a high-tech dystopia has a visual flair reminiscent of the Wachowskis’ work. speed racer. But the bright color palette and kid-friendly character designs only emphasize how misguided this project is. Allegories about the corrupting effects of power and vulgar fart jokes could, in theory, coexist just like barnyard animals. However, it requires a suitable shepherd. Contrary to what Serkis did, which sent the entire movie off a cliff.

animal farm It will be released in theaters on May 1, 2026. Check out the trailer below.