The premiere of the animated film “The Nut Job” hit theaters on Jan. 24, starring voice actors Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser, Liam Neeson, Katherine Heigl, Maya Rudolph and many more.

With a shortage of their food supply in the middle of fall, a group of wild animals in a city park is forced to find a way to gather enough food to last throughout the winter. The animals include squirrels, rats, moles and even a raccoon.

With food in mind, the gang spots a nut stand that contains more than enough food to feed the park for the whole winter. A fight breaks out for control of the nut stand, and in the midst of the feud, the nut stand is destroyed, leaving the animals faced with the task of finding a new way to survive throughout the winter.

The incident is blamed entirely on the selfishness of Surly the squirrel, and Surly is banished from the park and is forced to attempt to survive on the city streets. The streets are rough for Surly, as there are hostile creatures lurking and hardly so much as a scrap of food anywhere.

It does not take long for things to start looking up for Surly. However, Surly eventually finds a nut shop that will feed him for years to come, and he plans to keep it all to himself. That is, until the rest of the park finds out what Surly has discovered.

I really did not think the plot sounded all that great to begin with, so I did not have very high expectations for the movie. I usually love animated films, but this one was one of the worst I have seen in a while.

Every aspect of this movie can easily be improved to make it better. First of all, the plot is quite thin and the storyline is very dry. I feel like this would have made a better short 15 minute cartoon rather than an 86 minute movie.  It is very hard to see any sense of creativity that was put into the making of this movie.

There is also very poor character development in this film. There is not a single character that I felt like I had a connection with, and that is something that people need to have in a movie. Otherwise, they do not take anything from the movie.

The movie also was not at all effective as a comedy. I had a couple small laughs, but nothing that really made me feel joyful or overwhelmed with laughter. As expected, there were too many jokes about nuts in-film, and no one likes humor that is predictable.

If you are looking for a movie that your whole family can enjoy or if you just love animated films like me, I would recommend saving your money and staying in rather than seeing this movie.

1.5/5