Animals United

There’s no point in pondering how a meerkat, a lion, two Galapagos turtles, a polar bear, a kangaroo, a farting Tasmanian Devil and a French cockerel could ever feasibly live in harmony, suffice to say that it at least allowed the filmmakers to a) keep true to the concept of the title and b) drum home their message that mankind is destroying all regions of the planet and nature’s administrators – the animals – are getting cheesed off.

‘Animals United’ opens with a widescreen vista of an African plain before cutting to the hero of the piece, a meerkat called Billy. With the savannah all dried up, Billy and a matey lion called Sokrates set out to investigate the cause of the drought and in doing so unite the world’s animals in one happy Noah’s Ark moment. Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe’s cautionary tale sports impressive animation and posits a worthy ecocological message, but its method of execution is clumsy, stilted and filled with swathes of inconsequential padding. Still, the kids at the screening managed to stay awake, so that's a plus.