Barnyard -- 2006 -- PG

CG animated kids' movies are becoming quite the standard and overruling the older cell animation style, and so we get Barnyard, another film in this computer character style. But hm...what is our most defining feature of Barnyard? Bulls with udders. Not only do they have udders, but in one scene, we find these are milkable udders. Are we disturbed yet? Let's move on in.

Imagine this: all those animals you see out there grazing in the fields and pecking corn are actually just as intelligent as you and me, but they keep it a secret and wait till everyone's gone before rising onto two legs and carrying on conversations in standard English. Barnyard's actual plot is that of a kid bull whose dad wants him to grow up and stop fooling around all the time, since someday, he'll be in charge (more than likely). When circumstances throw junior into the ring of leadership, he has to figure out what his dad did right and decide whether he has what it takes to defend the barnyard from the evil coyotes.

Ok, it's a kid movie, so it's got cuteness factors out the wazoo as well as a super simple plot. It builds up to a super emotional punch about 30 minutes in, but after that, the film can't quite build back to that level as dad and junior's relationship got the lion's share of the development to ensure that the punch hit right on. From that point, the last hour is some slapstick humor, some awkward teen angst moments, and of course, the heroic showdown where everyone is redeemed and vindicated (even though the point where our hero got the standard "terrible secret" got so glossed over, that it was never brought up again for him to be redeemed over).

The characters are 90% cliches: stoic and wisdom infused dad; irresponsible kid thrust into leadership he doesn't want; shy new girl who falls for kid; some random younger character who looks up to kid; slew of others who fill in the gaps of best friends or dumb cohorts. From these, we do get some highly amusing moments, though. I believe the comedic highlight was the "boy-tipping" sequence, which was probably the reason this movie was made to begin with, since it was the longest sequence, and clearly the most well-thought-out (if you accept that cows can drive cars). Another very funny sequence, and one that was probably conceived of when they figured out how to setup the movie so their "boy-tipping scene" would work, is where the farmer catches the animals partying and talking, so the mule kicks him.

Beyond a handful of these sequences to exploit their idea, the rest was kind of tiring and existed only to create a 90 minute movie with a character arc and resolution. It really feels like they wanted to do these silly Barnyard animal scenes, but needed a vehicle to do them in that wasn't a short.

There are better movies out there for the younger set like Pixar's offerings (pretty much all of them), so unless you love the boy-tipping sequence, this film has very little to offer that we haven't seen before.