‘Animal Farm’ review: Director Andy Serkis softens George Orwell classic for family animation

Dir: Andy Serkis. Canada/UK/USA. 2025. 96mins

Initially conceived by George Orwell as a satirical allegory for the Russian Revolution and the next struggles of the USSR below the rule of Joseph Stalin, Animal Farm’s political ire is redirected on this vigorous CG-animated adaptation directed by Andy Serkis. Fairly than Stalinism, Serkis takes purpose at greed, rapacious consumerism and company corruption and malfeasance. There’s additionally a well timed dig at populist political actions.

The look of the image is romantic and welcoming

Animal Farm has beforehand been tailored right into a 1954 animation and a 1990 live-action function, and this model is a long-gestating ardour mission for Serkis; it was initially touted as his function directorial debut again in 2012. Serkis has subsequently directed 4 movies, together with adaptation Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle, and he’s at the moment in growth on The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. His Animal Farm, which has been tailored by Nicholas Stoller, takes a family-friendly strategy, filtering Orwell’s darkish imaginative and prescient by way of a peppy, kid-centric color palette. However whereas it could wrestle to fulfill diehard Orwell purists, the movie nonetheless takes a political stance and delivers an emphatic message celebrating equality and the ability of the collective – albeit one which allows us just a little extra hope than was current in Orwell’s 1945 novella.

The casting of a riffing, wise-cracking Seth Rogen within the position of pig-villain (and someday Stalin surrogate) Napoleon units the comedian tone and needs to be a key promoting level for the movie (likewise the presence of Kieran Culkin within the forged as Napoleon’s grovelling lackey Squealer). Given the advertising challenges steadily introduced by extra adult-themed animations, it’s more likely to be a canny industrial choice, even when the diploma of cuteness and lovely character design can really feel just a little incongruous given the character of the supply materials.

The fundamentals of the story stay: the animals of Manor Farm insurgent in opposition to the drunken farmer and the financial institution worker despatched to foreclose the property. They take over the working of the farm as a collective. And for some time no less than, all is harmonious. A algorithm is established to make sure an equitable stability of labour and standing. However then greed for energy and assets kicks in, and Napoleon the pig seizes management.

One of many primary alterations to the unique story is the addition of the central character of Fortunate (Gaten Matarazzo), a shiny younger piglet who finds his allegiances torn between light, progressive liberal pig Snowball (Laverne Cox), who nurtured Fortunate’s mind and taught him to learn, and the divisive rabble-rouser Napoleon. Positioning himself as a father determine, Napoleon lures Fortunate with a way of belonging. Positive, all animals are equal, causes Napoleon however, when it boils all the way down to it, pigs want to stay collectively.

There’s greater than a whiff of far-right rhetoric to Napoleon’s idea of species superiority and within the anti-intellectualism that he makes use of as a weapon in opposition to Snowball. And Stoller and Rogen sneak in just a few Trumpian thrives throughout Napoleon’s casual weaving addresses to the opposite animals. Elsewhere, the farm’s human neighbour Freida Pilkington (Glenn Shut), an industrial agriculture magnate who covets the land that the animals now domesticate, drives one thing that appears uncannily much like a Cybertruck and spies on the farm utilizing high-tech drones. 

The look of the image is romantic and welcoming. There’s a heat, honeyed glow to the sunshine, a everlasting pink-tinged magic hour that makes the farm seem like a spot the place nothing unhealthy might ever occur. And that’s maybe the purpose – the story is considered by way of the eyes of Fortunate, a naïve however inherently first rate idealist who needs to imagine the most effective about his fellow beasts, at the same time as Napoleon is promoting off Fortunate’s greatest pal, Boxer the horse (Woody Harrelson), to a glue manufacturing unit. Serkis’ model of Animal Farm is a coming-of-age image that argues that our greatest hope for a greater future rests with the youthful technology.