We're Crackers ...About Animals!

ANIMAL CRACKERS is heading to cinemas, so STARBURST looks into what this animated critter-packed offering is all about…

- Jack Bottomley

The art of animated cinema has come a long way, from the earliest days of animation as a special effect to the modern day acceptance by the majority that animation itself is a genre. There are now so many animated movies out there that when some land in your local cinema, you have to look 
them up. Indeed, outside the powerhouse pixel-preparers like Pixar, Studio Ghibli, DreamWorks and, more recently, Illumination Entertainment and Laika, it seems that many animated movies get a bit overlooked or have to fight to stand out in the colourful, innovative, hilarious and sweeping crowd.

One gets the impression that such is the case for a little film called Animal Crackers, which stars a big name voice cast, boasts a potentially fun concept and has an attention grabbing poster (the ‘animals out of a box’ one, not the big CG hamster!), and yet, many people don’t seem to know much about it. Well, allow us to go a little crackers (wouldn’t be the first time), as we give you the low down on this American-Spanish production, which sounds like it could be a blast.

Not to be confused with the Marx Brothers’ 1930 comedy of the same name, Animal Crackers sees the life of Owen Huntington (The Office’s John Krasinski) and his family undergo a drastic change, as they inherit a circus. The circus is run-down to say the least, but they soon discover that the dearly departed uncle who bequeathed them this circus had a secret, a magical box of animal crackers, which allows the consumer the ability to turn into whatever animal they eat in cracker form. However, with such a gift comes a problem, in the shape of dastardly (other) uncle - and owner of the largest chain of circuses in the world - Horatio P. Huntington (the mighty Ian McKellen), who will stop at nothing to get his hands on these magical treats and Owen’s newly acquired circus.