Animal Farm
Directed by Andy Serkis
Seth Rogen, Pete Davidson, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin
“Andy Serkis adapted George Orwell's Animal Farm. Seth Rogen voices Napoleon. The result is the most expensive misunderstanding of source material in recent memory.”
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The Review
Animal Farm is a satirical novella about Stalinism specifically and authoritarianism generally. It ends with the pigs becoming indistinguishable from the humans they overthrew. The 2026 animated adaptation, directed by Andy Serkis and voiced by a cast including Seth Rogen as Napoleon, Pete Davidson as Snowball, and Glenn Close as the dying old boar Major, has decided that what this story really needed was more jokes.
There is a version of this adaptation that would work. Animation lets you stylize the violence and the metaphor in ways live action cannot. The cast is talented. Serkis directing animals after a career playing them is at least a thematic alignment. The problem is the script, which appears to have been workshopped by a room that read the SparkNotes and concluded the source was a comedy about pigs being silly. The film softens every edge Orwell sharpened.
When it works, it works because the source is bulletproof. The final scene where the pigs and humans become indistinguishable still lands because Orwell built it to land. When it does not work, which is most of the runtime, it is because the script is fundamentally afraid of its own subject matter. This will be assigned in college courses by professors who want to make a point. It should not have been assigned by Universal to the marketing team that wrote the trailer.
What It Nails
- +Animation style is genuinely beautiful and earns its budget
- +Glenn Close as Old Major delivers the only fully realized performance
- +The final shot still works because Orwell did the heavy lifting in 1945
- +Production design treats the farm as a credible space
What It Botches
- -Tonal whiplash between satire and family comedy makes neither work
- -Seth Rogen voicing Napoleon flattens the character into a sitcom dad with power
- -Pete Davidson as Snowball is exactly what you fear it would be
- -Cuts the most damning material from the book to keep a PG rating
- -Marketing positions it as a fun adventure, which is dishonestly misleading
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Who It's For
People who want to feel like they engaged with Orwell without doing so. Parents looking for a movie that has the air of importance. Voice cast completists.
Who Should Skip
Anyone who has read the book recently. Anyone who teaches the book. Anyone who wanted an adaptation that understood why the book is taught.
Marketing Roast
Universal is marketing this as a family adventure with a touch of timely social relevance. The book was banned in multiple countries. The trailer mostly features pigs being silly. Make of that what you will.
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