CinemaNow - Barnyard

The basic problem with the computer-animated Barnyard is that there have been too many similar movies already released this year, some of them better, several critics suggest. As Bill Zwecker puts it in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Maybe I've just seen too many of these pictures, but the basically good -- though not very inspired -- Barnyard just stirred up a lot of "been there, done that" feelings in me as I watched this film. Though it's guaranteed to keep kids amused and attentive, a lot of parents or older people joining the kiddies in the multiplexes may find themselves a bit bored by it all." Jennie Punter in the Toronto Globe & Mail concludes that the movie will keep family audiences "moderately entertained," but, she adds, it "doesn't stand up to this summer's relative bonanza of animated family films." There is another thing about the movie that seems to trouble all of the critics: male cows. Claudia Puig is USA Today notes that "it's just odd" that the calf at the center of the tale has "physical attributes make him more like a wannabe Bessie than a fun-loving stud. A horse is a horse, of course, but can a bull be a cow?" An udderly fanciful dance number in the film particularly upset Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times, who writes, "The image would be plenty disturbing enough if the characters didn't compound the shock by going about on hind legs and engaging in lots of bouncy physical activity. Reader, there were times when I felt compelled to avert my eyes and pray for pants."