Review: An oppressively dumbed-down 'Animal Farm' has little use for George Orwell's ideas

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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.Movies Peck’s new documentary “Orwell: 2+2=5” uses the author’s own words to confront propaganda, doublespeak and the spread of authoritarianism in the 21st century.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 ...