OVP: Ferdinand (2017)

Film: Ferdinand (2017)
Stars: John Cena, Kate McKinnon, David Tennant, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Anderson, Peyton Manning, Gina Rodriguez
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

One of the first stories I can remember my mother reading me when I was growing up was The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf.  The story of a bull who didn't want to fight, but instead wanted to stay in the field and smell flowers was a favorite of mine (the obvious gay themes of the book were lost on me then, though as an adult they're all there pretty obviously), and I also enjoyed the Disney short back in the day (I haven't revisited in in years-does it hold up?).  As a result, I was curious to see what Blue Sky would do with the a live-action telling of the story, expanded from about twenty pages into a full-length feature film.  What resulted is a cute, albeit colored-in-the-lines approach to the story that feels more appropriate because it reignites a classic than based on anything the filmmakers are doing.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around Ferdinand (Cena), a young bull who is more intent on caring for flowers than in trying to fight the matador like the other young bulls are.  One day his father, the biggest of the adult bulls, is taken to fight the matador, and dies in the process.  Ferdinand decides he wants to escape from the ranch, and does so while fleeing to a flower farm where he befriends a young girl (in a page plucked right out of Disney, even though this is FOX).  However, after an accident at a flower show (where he sits on a bee, one of the few incidents plucked straight from the book), he is forced back to the ranch and must contend with his doomed fate (they realize, in a relatively dark moment that gives off a strong vegetarian message that the bulls are either going to end up in a chophouse or dead in the arena), or help all of his new friends (including those who dislike him because he's different) by escaping to the flower ranch.

The movie occasionally veers too off-track for my tastes.  In many ways this is the most Disney-fied movie from Blue Sky, who with work like Ice Age, Rio, and their best film The Peanuts Movie, frequently created a motif distinctive of the Mouse House, and it shows.  The side characters are all plucked from a Disney film, particularly the cavalcade of bulls that surround Ferdinand, and the (admittedly funny) German horses that live next to the bull corral, the leader voiced by the always amusing Flula Borg.  This leaves you with less distinction for the picture, particularly when it might have been more interesting to invest time into Ferdinand getting to know himself.  John Cena's shown to be a surprisingly able comedian, and while he's been taking pages out of Dwayne Johnson's playbook for a while now, quite frankly I think he might actually be the better actor.  I like the way he approaches Ferdinand as unapologetically himself, and it would have been interesting to see him explore or explain why he loves flowers, rather than just taking it as an accepted fact.  If nothing else, I think it's time someone give John Cena an actual leading man role in a non-action, non-comedy feature and see how it holds up, as I think he'd surprise.

The film loses its steam when it doesn't rely upon this unique Ferdinand character.  Kate McKinnon is hilarious always, but her goat is a bit under-baked and a tad annoying (and her "is this love?" is one that clearly resonated more with the writers than the audience, as it was a throwback to a line that was nearly drowned out by the sound mixers), but this is harmless fun, and a cute movie.  No one is breaking their backs here, but compared to some other children's films that came out this year, it's nice to see a picture that isn't a sequel and can create an interesting chief protagonist without giving him a gimmick.