Barnyard

This film is about a group of party loving animals on a farm. The leader, Otis, have to lead the group to party and to fight the evil coyotes that threaten to kill all the kens on the farm.

Let me start off by pointing out the only single good thing about this film. The background colours are all soft colours, which means that the animation is generally pleasant to look at.

Then the bad things about the movie. First, the cows in the movie are all gender confused. It took me a while to realise that the "cows" are in fact "cows" but oxen. The story is simply non existent. The filmmakers simply get a group of speaking animals to dance. That's all the story there is. The supposedly touching subplot of Ben the dying to make Otis (or is it a she?) realise that he has to grow up is laughable and poorly built up. the character development is poor, and I do not care for any of the characters.

The worst of all, is that the film shows a group of cows stealing a car for joy riding. They keep drinking, and then when they got chased by the police, they speed up and say they cannot stop the car. After all the delinquency, there is no mention whatsoever that these behaviour are in fact wrong. They all got away with it. What kind of message are we sending to the kids? Are we telling them these behaviours are OK and justifiable? Most of the animations have a great plot and some moral teachings. Look at Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Over The Hedge. However, this film does not have any. Barnyard fails to engage the viewers. It is so bad that you have to see it to believe it.