Conference of Animals

First of all, children up to 11 years, especially girls, will love this movie.

It is very child-oriented, which means it is a bit infantile, especially in delivering its message. The message is, and here comes Al Gore in, who will love this movie also, that we humans are bad bad bad when it goes to matters of nature, animals, earth.

Parents will probably get bored sometimes, because the message is delivered with some long lasting sermons, which we hear all over the time, but in this case from the oldest and wisest animals on earth. And children learn that what their parents do for their living, is mostly bad and causes nature to suffer. But to be honest, that's true. Nature is raped by man, and we don't care. After there seems no other way in Germany to raise the funds for a Pixar-like animated movie, we have to live with it. Not too bad for us to be confronted with a bitter truth once more, although it's not brought to us very subtle.

Animation is good and doesn't stay behind current productions. 3d effects are also impressive and obviously not post-production.

The characters are nice and funny and believable, mostly cliché of course, the plot is executed adventurous enough to keep everybody in line, even if we know, how the movie will end.

What the movie lacks is independence, its a mixture of everything from Madagascar through Ice Age and Horton, a perfect example of target group oriented product placement. 'No experiments' was the prime directive during production, it's obviously. Personally, I thought they took that too serious.

But nevertheless we go into a theater to watch a movie that makes our kids happy. If this is what our children makes happy, so what shells ? I don't open my wallet (so wide) to have a censorious conversation afterward, but to ask 'How did you like it ?' and get the answer 'I loved it so much'. And I got it.