Barnyard

There’s one particular comic strip in Gary Larson’s ‘The Far Side’ collection that features a herd of cows standing up on their hind legs, discussing vital matters of the day. Cut to frame two where one of them shouts ‘Car!’ and, in the following frame, they’re all back to grazing on all fours purely for the benefit of us humans. That’s the gist behind this half-baked CGI offering from Nickelodeon; a film that manages to say less in 90 minutes than Larson achieved in three simple panels. The film alights on a primary-coloured farmstead presided over by a chubby farmer who is blissfully unaware that his clichéd collection of animals – headed by macho bull Ben – can, in the best traditions of anthropomorphism, all walk and talk. Ben’s getting on a bit, though, so he’s priming his son Otis for leadership. But all Otis wants to do is party. Will Otis ever get his act together? Do we care? The animation here is of the plastic toy variety but that’s not the real sin. The real sin is seeing a bull… with udders! What the hell is that all about? Aside from a couple of successfully dark moments involving a gang of coyotes, most of this fatuous film is loud, raucous and dispiritingly unfunny.