Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) Movie Information:

Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) Directed by: Steve Oedekerk Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) Written by: Steve Oedekerk Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) Cast: Kevin James, Courteney Cox, Sam Elliott, Danny Glover, Andie MacDowell, Wanda Sykes

Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) U.S. Distributor: Paramount Pictures Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) U.K. Distributor: UIP

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Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) Synopsis:

From Steve Oedekerk and Nickelodeon Movies, two of the co-creators of "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius," and filmed entirely in CGI, comes this hilarious look at what really happens in a barnyard when the farmer's back is turned. "Barnyard" is a lighthearted tale centering around Otis (voiced by Kevin James), a carefree party cow, who enjoys singing, dancing and playing tricks on humans. Unlike his father Ben (voiced by Sam Elliott), the respected patriarch of the farm, and Miles, the wise old mule (voiced by Danny Glover), Otis is unconcerned about keeping the animals' humanlike talents a secret. But when suddenly put in the position of responsibility, the "udderly" irresponsible cow finds the courage to be a leader.

Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) Movie Review:

There are problems with virtually every aspect of this extraneous animated feature--the design is uninteresting, the characters are bland and the story is terrible. Sure, it's lively enough to keep children (and stupid adults) entertained, but it's still awful.

Otis the cow (voiced by James) is a party animal, shirking his responsibilities to play pranks with his pals and whoop it up in nightly barn-dances the critters organise when the (conveniently vegan) farmer's asleep. But Otis' father (Elliott) wants his son to take over as leader when he's gone. And the farm is being threatened by a vicious coyote (Koechner) and his gang. Then a cute pregnant cow (Cox) arrives to distract Otis further.

Sigh. Everything in this film is painfully simplistic. The story never makes sense, plodding through various unfunny antics to the next clunky plot point while wallowing in syrupy sentiment at every opportunity. Meanwhile, the dialog and vocal work is surprisingly dull for a cast of this calibre; there's not a whiff or personality anywhere.

And worst of all, the film's design is cheap and tacky, as none of these animals look or act anything like their real-world counterparts. It's lazy and slapdash--not necessarily cheap, but profoundly unimaginative. Why, for example, do they continually refer to the bulls as cows? Perhaps it's because they all have swollen udders. Biology teachers will spend years trying to correct this and many other bizarre touches.

That's not to say it's completely worthless. There are a few hilarious gags and some especially good one-liners. But they're few and far between. Everything else is forced and contrived, straining for the comedy without even a hint of wit. None of the animals is remotely comical, which is odd. You expect one character to emerge as a wacky scene-stealer, but it never happens. You expect the story to take off, but it never does. Especially undemanding children might be distracted by the colourful goofiness. But the adults will be rooting for the coyotes. In a year that's seen far too many animated films already, this is perhaps the worst of the bunch. So far.

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Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) review written by: Rich Cline