(PG) ★★
Director: Andy Serkis.
Cast: (voices of) Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Woody Harrelson, Kieran Culkin, Glenn Close, Laverne Cox, Steve Buscemi, Jim Parsons, Andy Serkis, Kathleen Turner, Iman Vellani.
 |
| "And then I said, 'why yes, I do want to roll around in my own filth!'." |
The idea of doing a modernised CG family-friendly adaptation of George Orwell's legendary fascism allegory Animal Farm sparks two major questions - how will they tone down some of the darker elements of the original story, and will that dilute the power of its message?
Director Serkis and screenwriter Nicholas Stoller have a decent crack at it here, and are willing push things in some cases. But ultimately this is a dark tale that feels largely too dark for young kids, yet not actually dark enough to do Orwell's story justice, making you wonder if this could ever really work for a family audience.
The story follows the animals of Manor Farm, who fight back rather than be sent to the slaughterhouse when their drunken owner Farmer Jones goes broke. Under the leadership of Snowball the pig (Cox), the animals begin to run the farm themselves, but things take a turn when a pig named Napoleon (Rogen) decides he would make a better leader.
Animal Farm has been adapted twice before, both times aimed at family audiences, to middling reviews and less than enthusiastic responses. This version is likely to receive about the same reception - it's too grim for the littleys, too kidsy for older kids, and too watered down for adults.
They get some things right though. The introduction of a new character, Lucky the pig (Matarazzo), to serve as audience surrogate is helpful, and many of the core elements of the book remain - the slogans, the fates of several characters, and the final image of Orwell's book, for example.
But where the story tries to modernise, be cool, and appeal to a new young audience, the film feels off, like it has a trotter in two worlds. There are the obligatory dance bangers and pigs doing silly antics to appeal to the kiddies, but it's at odds with the central tale about how communism works in theory, but not in practice because power corrupts, money is the root of all evil, and people are pigs. The famous final image of Orwell's book where the humans and pigs are indistinguisbale from each other is not the end of the film, for example - instead the movie has to find a "happy ending", which is understandable, but this ain't it.
The voice cast is excellent though, and definitely elevate the production - Matarazzo, Turner, Rogen, Culkin, Vellani, Harrelson and Parsons are all great.
Serkis and Stoller get points for trying, and they almost pull it off. There are moments of brilliance here. But getting Orwell's cautionary tale to work for all-ages on the big screen just ends up being a mismatch of dark tone and kidsy japes, with the political message lost in the scraps.
