You have a week off with your kid, and it is cold outside, so what do you do? You go see a movie of course. This was true for me and the Missus as well. We had already seen the great Coco, so all that was left for our young daughter was Ferdinand. I wasn’t sure about Blue Sky’s latest release. Their movies have been hit and miss, but Ferdinand was very well done. Not a classic by any means, but good family entertainment.
Ferdinand is about the titular bull, voiced by John Cena, who doesn’t want to grow up and fight in the ring with a matador. He would rather grow and smell flowers then lock horns with his pals. The other bulls can’t understand this and make fun of him, so he runs away in search of a new life.
There is not a lot of story in Ferdinand, and the path the simplistic tale takes will not surprise anyone, but it has a good amount of heart, and John Cena does a real good job of making Ferdinand believable and sympathetic. If his goal is to follow Dwayne Johnson out of the ring, he may be well on his way. They also cover up their lack of material with a lot of silly sequences. Which may go on a little long for adults, but I can tell you Lil’ Shmee loved them.
The rest of the voice cast is pretty good too, but I will say there are some hedgehogs with some of the best talent, on paper, in the movie that are completely wasted. I don’t think I, or anyone else in the theater, laughed once at their gags. Thankfully they are not in it a lot.
Ferdinand will not be an animated movie that adults will love. They will probably enjoy it, but they will not remember it long. Kids on the other hand seemed to be delighted by the on screen antics of Ferdinand the Bull and his friends. Which means the movie did its job. If you need to see movie with your family, and you have already seen Coco, Ferdinand is more than up to the task.