An oppressively dumbed-down ‘Animal Farm’ has little use for George Orwell’s ideas

As the cautionary 1945 fable “Animal Farm” memorably shows, George Orwell had some thoughts about the Soviet Union and the terrible folly in politicized moralism. Were he around today, he’d probably have some thoughts about the state of children’s animation too, after seeing director Andy Serkis’ crass, frenetic, Americanized “update” of his anti-totalitarianism creature tale. To riff off the book’s famous maxim: Some cartoons are decidedly less equal than others.

We’re still at the poorly run Manor Farm, where the pigs, horses, sheep and poultry feel the oppressive weight of undignified labor under alcoholic, cash-strapped and violent farmer Mr. Jones. And yet a gag that has them surprised that piling into a big truck means getting sent to the slaughterhouse seems to go against the concept that they’re observant, speaking animals who know slang and crack one-liners, like this movie’s crafty Napoleon (voiced by Seth Rogen). Orwell’s original characters understood from the get-go where many of them end up.

But hey, it’s an action set piece that nonetheless becomes a dynamic wake-up call to rebellion and self-determination, led by conscientious pig Snowball (Laverne Cox), whose rules for peaceful, plentiful coexistence without humans earns the trust of wide-eyed piglet Lucky (Gaten Matarazzo). As new characters go, Lucky is obviously designed for spell-it-out relatability to a young viewer — which is harmless enough, but you’d like to think one of the most popular, education-friendly stories of the 20th century hardly needed a new entry point.

But downers don’t cut it when you’re making today’s attention span-driven family fare. So Lucky falls under the manipulative Napoleon’s sway when the big boar shrewdly ousts Snowball, usurps power, transforms those socialist ideals into class-tiered serfdom and enters into partnership with neighbor Pilkington (Glenn Close), here rejiggered as a Musk-like tech mogul because why not.

The relentless, sped-up pace turns Orwell’s narrative into a noisy good-vs.-evil story with zero nuance, as if the whole point was to get to someone shouting at Napoleon: “Your whole life is a lie!” (Yep, that would have showed Stalin.) The mania also squelches the parts that seem naturally update-friendly — Napoleon could easily be a Trump-coded figure now — and overcooks the added anti-capitalism grandiosity (malls, drones, robots, material excess). What’s left is a visually unappetizing “Animal Farm” that plays as if someone sloppily traced over a masterpiece. And Serkis (who also voices a rooster) doesn’t so much direct it as twist some grand knob with settings like “Louder,” “Faster,” “Jokier,” “Bigger.”

Applying kiddie filters to “Animal Farm” is certainly an irony to ponder regarding the book’s theme of oppression. This “Farm” isn’t lacking for good intentions and, in spots, as with Woody Harrelson’s fine casting as the naïve, loyal horse Boxer, one can see glimmers of what a good adaptation might have been. But it’s hard to imagine adults who are nostalgic about the text being won over anew, or children realizing what was so classic about these talking animals in the first place.

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