Animal Farm (2026)

Serkis' take on Orwell's classic story isn't quite a misfire but also isn't overly successful in adapting the story. It attempts to update the cautionary tale to one that fits this rather specific moment while simultaneously attempting to make a film that that is so palatable for a mainstream audience that its message is watered down. Still embedded in here are some sharp critiques that I'm rather surprised by based on the studios backing this movie. But it all sort of happens rather quickly and it's easy to dismiss a lot of what happens here. 

Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a Democratic Socialist critique of Communism by using the specific example of the rise of the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime. That's heady stuff despite the narrative being populated by adorable farm animals. As history keeps repeating, the exploitation of popular movements for totalitarian power continues to be a reality in our world, so this version shifts its soviet allegory to one of corporate fascism with very obvious references to the Trump administration. A lot of those parallels are dead on which, being distributed by a Christian film company, comes as a bit of a surprise. Despite changing the nature of the "villains" the plot points of the novel are basically hit beat by beat. 

But so much of it is softened in exchange for telling a more traditional overcoming-the-bad-guys story. The narrative feels rushed, the brutality of the events are taken out, and the addition of a new central character, Lucky, a plucky little pig who gets sucked into the Pig Regime but eventually does what's right. But like a lot of adaptations of Animal Farm it inserts a happy ending that Orwell never intended and which takes away from the cautionary effect of the story. In the end the bad guys are put in their place (through a clumsily executed climax that feels designed to give younger audiences moments to cheer) and once again the "good" animals take over. It sort of misses the point.

So I am torn a bit. Kids watching this will get something out of the messages here and it gives them more to chew on than the average mainstream animated film. But the film just isn't done well and it rounds off the rough edges in a way that makes it all feel like a charming moral more than a dystopian horror story.  That paired with the film's obvious dialogue and fairly standard animation makes this version rather forgettable.

Animal Farm

Starring: Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Kieran Culkin, Glenn Close, Laverne Cox, Steve Buscemi, Woody Harrelson, Jim Parsons, Andy Serkis, Kathleen Turner

Director: Andy Serkis

Writer: Nicholas Stoller