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Barnyard (2006)

Director: Steve Oedekerk

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2 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

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.

Author: Derek Adams 2006-10-17 10:58:30

Time Out London Issue 1887: October 17-24 2006

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User reviews of this film

Bryan said...

Posted on Oct 26 2009 16:48 Even weirder, there IS a BULL in the movie. When the animals have there night party in the beginning of the movie, there is a part where Bessie (one of the female cows) takes two chairs from 1. A cow and 2. A BULL. The Bull had no utters and was obviously a Bull. Just very strange why they didn't make the other "male cows" like this. The bull didn't have utters.

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motheroftwo said...

Posted on Jul 25 2007 17:17 This film is dreadful, not funny and a complete waste of viewing time, avoid at all costs

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