DVD review: Ferdinand

DVD: Ferdinand

Reviewed by: Samantha Keogh

Review made possible by: Empire Entertainment

If you love children’s movies or have a toddler in the house, it’s time to take a break. Grab your bag and head on over to your nearest DVD store.

Ferdinand is one of those rare movies that is perfectly suited to an audience of any age with its delightful main character Ferdinand and a wonderful supporting cast.

There is something wonderful about talking cartoon animals and the way in which animators, directors and actors work together to create magical personalities for animated creatures.

Ferdinand is a young bull who loves flowers and nature and refuses to fight with the other young bulls at a bullfighting training ranch in rural Spain.

He is often ridiculed by the other calves – Bones, Guapo and Valiente – for his preference for smelling and protecting flowers over fighting.

When his father is chosen to fight in the ring in Madrid, and never comes back, Ferdinand escapes before he can be selected for a showdown with a matador.

Being chased by workers from the ranch, he leaps onto a passing train and finds himself deposited on a flower farm where the owner Juan, his daughter Nina and their dog Paco adopt him, giving him the life he has dreamed about – an abundance of love, fresh air, trees and flowers and a family and home to call his own.

His new world comes crashing down when he disrupts the annual flower festival in Ronda and the authorities return him to his former captors.

Here he finds his three childhood nemeses have been joined by a Scottish bull named Angus, Lupe a crazy goat, three thieving hedgehogs and a bunny rabbit.

With help from the wisecracking goat and the rest of his new friends, the giant, gentle bovine must find a way to break free before he squares off against El Primero, the famous bullfighter who never loses.

Aimed at the very young, this is a delightful treat for any child and one which can be enjoyed by the entire family.

The colourful characters, from the gentle giant of a bull to his rival bulls, the hedgehogs, goat and a host of other animals, are sure to excite little ones. However, to my mind the three aristocratic (read snobbish) Lipizzaner horses Hans, Klaus and Gretta really should have been given more screen time, or a movie of their own.

Voiced by Sally Phillips, Boris Kodjoe and Flula Borg, the horses were in prime position to steal the show from the host of great characters and were definitely one of the highlights of the movie for me, especially when they lose a dance-off with the bulls.