Animals United (Konferenz der Tiere) Reviews

Animals United is a German animated film directed by Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe and I have to say that I am not sure if this is just some kind of propaganda movie or something kids can enjoy because the story had elements of both - propaganda films and kids films!

Story about a meerkat called Billy (James Cordon) and a lion called Socrates (Stephen Fry) in the African Okavango Delta who go on a quest to discover why their river has unexpectedly dried up seems interesting for younger children, but the director and the screenplay writers expect that those children will know about UN HQ in New York where all animals arrive by the help of humpback whales... farfetched, don't you think? For that amazingly bad story you can blame Oliver Huzly and Reinhard Kloos and the typically bad chicken dance (favourite German party music) soundtrack was composed by David Newman.

I know that most young children will enjoy the motley crew of animals searching for a new home after their habitats have been destroyed by fire, oil spills and or other man-made disasters... but even kids would not accept impossible way of all of them meeting together - in a middle of an ocean in a bath tub!

Just save yourself few bucks and an hour and half of wasted time!

First of all, let me point out that this is mainly an ENVIRONMENTAL film. That's clearly the message this movie is trying to send...that every decision we, as humans, make effect the environment and the creatures living in it in some way. When several animals never even been around Africa lose their homes due to human action, they converge together and end up in Africa, where they meet up with Billy the Meerkat (who has to be a relative of Timon, he's just like him) and Socrates the Lion (who has turned from a carnivore to a vegetarian all because of one experience that killed his brother...when they went to an ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD - again with the Lion King reference!). The animals in Africa haven't received their yearly water cascade, so they go on a lengthy mission to find it. Lo and behold, humans have dammed up the water so that they can have it for their own luxury resort. With a united effort (as the movie's title implies), the group overcomes all odds (and one maniacal Hunter) to break the dam and return nature's peace to normal (as Socrates' sole goal in life mentions). This is a film you might be confused by at first with all the characters being thrown at you at once, but as the story goes along, it all comes together to teach its message. "Animals United" may not be realistic in the fact that all the animals wouldn't start a revolution, but the message comes across the same that we need to have a heart (just like the big business man's daughter, Mya), because we're not the only ones sharing the Earth.

Much like most animated films that were made in Germany, Italy, or any country in most of Europe, this isn't exactly a great or good movie. But to be fair, it's probably the most entertaining and most enjoyable of the ones from the film festivals. A somewhat decent flick. Nothing more, nothing less.

I guess it was alright. Could've been a lot worse.

This is nothing more than propaganda designed to condition children to become narrow minded Utopians without any shred of common sense. The worst offense this movie has to offer is the constant barrage of stereotypes. Stereotyping is funny in comedy skits; but, when you are stereotyping average human beings as ruthless villains; you're being disingenuous. Think of the most liberal person you know, now take about 5 paces to the left of reality, that's where you'll find this movie.

Lions eat zebras and hunters (at least in the U.S.) are the primary supporters of animal conversations. We wouldn't even have conversations if it wasn't for having a hunter for a U.S. President. I'd like my children to have one foot in reality, even with a farcical cartoon.

Terrible! Even by a 3 year old's standards. Maybe if they spent more time on the characters and dialogue rather than trying so obviously hard to push their "people are bad" message then maybe it could have been a decent movie. Even my 3 year old commented on how boring it was.

Does Charles have feathers on his body? He looks plucked.

It's pretty but that's it. The plot is dire and misses the point I think it was trying to make. Better to rewatch a classic then waste time on this, I don't think there was even one joke to be found

Preachy, poor plot, horrible voice acting.

Well, this was just like Madagascar down to the hypochondriac, over exaggerated Zebra. Oh, but minus and the global warming, eco friendly view. Very bad acting and I found the mouths of the characters didn't match the animation; which to an adult is slightly annoying. I do think its important to teach a positive eco friendly tale once and awhile ... After its all said and done, my 20 month old demands to watch this movie. If it were up to him, it wold be a 5 star.

if you loved the inconvenient truth you'll love this. its just like it but animated and has a story line!

Worst movie i might have seen in my life. Just flat out awful. It doesnt make sense and its hard to understand.

This movie is part children's movie part environmentalist propaganda. The kids movie part is okay but the propaganda ruins it.

Badagascar with a preachy eco-message even I can't stand.

Speechless. That is what happens after watching what should lightly be called a movie. Puzzled. That?s a feeling that comes shortly afterwards when you start to wonder what you just sat through. Animals United literally has to be one of the worst animations ever made for quite a good few reasons, it?s just finding the place to start. The story is just laughably bad, granted that this is most probably aimed for children under the age of nine but it fails to reach out to the poor adults or parents who have to sit through the movie. The story was just everywhere; one minute the animals are doing one thing and then out of nowhere, other animals play a more important role and then they do something else. As well as that, there was quite a few plot holes and there were so many storylines that the movie couldn?t really keep up and failed to entertain you. There was one particular scene which involved the lion Socretes, voiced by Stephen Fry, and he told Billy the meerkat, voiced by James Corden, a tragic story from his past and you just couldn?t really connect or feel anything for his story at all. It just felt like it was randomly thrown in out of nowhere just to make up the runtime. The only characters you did like and could feel something for were the two seven-hundred year old tortoises.

Animals United has a British cast that includes Stephen Fry, Dawn French, Joanna Lumley, Billie Piper and James Corden and most of them sounded very bored as their characters and sounded like they just wanted to get the movie out of the way. James Corden tries very hard to inject humour into the movie but therein lies the problem, he tried way too hard. The writers have tried to make a movie that spreads the message of environmental issues and how it threatens the animal kingdom through humour, great animation and nicely-written characters. Unfortunately, they?ve managed to achieve the opposite, making a movie that felt like it was preaching that all humans are evil through infantile humour, decent animation and one-dimensional characters. Overall, Animals United does have a couple of moments where the animation is nice to look at and an almost-touching scene where one of the seven-hundred year old tortoises tells everybody what she has seen humans do in the past but other than that, it?s a complete mess.

Even though Animals United is aimed mostly at the younger audience, it is still not an excuse to use. Disney and Pixar have proven so many times that animations can reach out to audiences of all ages and all tastes and manage to make the audience feel attached to their characters and make us think about the messages in their movies. However, Animal United fails magnificently in entertaining adults but it could succeed in entertaining the little ones, it?s touch and go. The musical numbers used in the movie is very poor and should never have happened and, because this is a German animation, the lip-synching is out half of the time when they talk. Overall, it?s more or less a bad animation with a tedious story that gets the wrong message across. Don?t pay to see this movie, wait until it comes on television at your own risk!

Animals United. I saw it during spring break and i liked it. the score by David Newman is awesome, the characters were creative, the settings were cool and overall it's an enjoyable movie. why would people say it's bad. they need to see the Hungarian film Vuk to understand the art of other countries doing films.

this was a horrible, racist, hate-mongering movie that promoted absolute disrespect of parents! the propaganda was just ridiculous! and the quoting of the bible really set me off! this movie is disgusting and i would really like to throw tomatoes at the morons who came up with this movie to indoctrinate our children, my only hope is that parents will watch the movies that they put on for their children.

Waste of splendid animation on a tired storyline. I am sure Al Gore loved it.

The whole family sat down to watch this. Expectations high. I wish I could give a brief overview of what this film was about to back up our opinion of it but that was the main problem - none of us had any idea (20 minutes in) what it was meant to be about. It flicked from one scene to the next, one set of animal friends to the next without explanation. It made no sense what so ever. A forst fire did not strike fear into the animals - instead two of them wandered off casually sharing a can of drink they'd found. The animation was quite good so I really feel for the people who worked on it. I confess not to have watched the whole film as the children 'begged' us to turn it off after 20 minutes. We asked for our money back at the video store not expecting to get it - but we did! Thanks Blockbuster!

provides an ecological message but not a very successful way that this animation to be boring and silly