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56%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #2,923
...out of 20,203 movies
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When the farmer's away, all the animals play, and sing, and dance. Eventually, though, someone has to step in and run things, a responsibility that ends up going to Otis, a carefree cow.
--IMDb
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Review by Tobes
Added: January 7, 2010
In today's movie scene, there are a lot of production companies putting out movies, and there a handful of them that constantly put out hits. In the 3-D animated (kids) movie genre, there are two companies that rule the scene, in Pixar and Dreamworks. So what happens when Nickelodeon, known for kids programming, tries to put out their own 3-D animated movie? You get Barnyard, 2006's addition to the ever growing animated scene.
Barnyard is a fun film about the animals of a farm, and how they co-exist with each other, the farmers that own them, and their world outside of the farm's fences. The main story involves cows Ben (Sam Elliott) and Otis (Kevin James) as protectors of th farm, Otis and his "gang" of trouble-causers, and Otis and his possible romantic interest Daisy (Courtney Cox).
Ben is Barnyard's head honcho, and he wants to pass on that role to Otis (who is his "adopted" son) when he's no longer able to protect everyone. Protect everyone from what, you might ask? The coyotes, led by Dag (David Koechner), who want to eat a spare animal here and there living at the farm. Ben does a great job of fighting off the coyotes here and there, all while singing Won't Back Down by Tom Petty, keeping the farm a great place to live. The problem is Otis is a partier who wants nothing to do with responsibility and just wants to keep his carefree life style. All of this is fine and dandy, until Ben gets jumped by the coyotes while everyone else is out partying, and passes away. Otis feels guilty, and takes over the lead role in his own "carefree" way, which leads to a handful of problems, and the rest of the movie deals with him learning what it means to be responsible for his own actions, as well as how to be a protector for the ones he loves.
This movie is one of the better animated films story wise, but as for the graphics themselves, they are NOWHERE near the kind of thing you'll see out of a Pixar or Dreamworks film. I definitely applaud Nickelodeon's attempt to make an animated film, but you can see that they're new to the scene. The animations/designs aren't as crisp as other films that are out, and the world is very static, with not a lot of things happening in the backgrounds of scenes.
The characters are all very enjoyable and "humanized", where you can feel what they're feeling, or at least relate to what's going on. Ben's burial scene is one of the saddest things you'll see in an animated scene (besides Up, which brings the tears about 10 min in). It's also hilarious watching the talking animals interact with their human counterparts. That's right, in this one, the humans can hear what the animals are saying, which leads for a memorable scene involving "boy tipping".
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie, as it relays a good family message of enjoying your loved ones while they are around, and how to enjoy life without taking it to extremes that can hurt not only yourself, but people around you.
8/10
Well I know what's right, I got just one life
in a world that keeps on pushin' me around
but I'll stand my ground
...and I won't back down
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#1:
Lucid Dreams
- added January 8, 2010 at 1:59am
I did not care for this one at all. 4/10
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