ANIMALS UNITED (U, 93 mins) ***
Featuring the voices of James Corden, Stephen Fry, Dawn French, Joanna Lumley, Billie Piper, Andy Serkis, Jim Broadbent, Vanessa Redgrave, Mischa Goodman, Bella Hudson, Michael Glover, Kim Holland

Inspired by the children’s book The Animals’ Conference, this computer-animated safari marshals an army of creatures, great and small, to rouse mankind from its slumber about global warming and pollution.

In the Okavango Delta, the local wildlife waits patiently every year for the waters which nourish the valley.

When the deluge fails to materialise, Billy the forgetful meerkat (Corden) and his best friend Socrates the lion (Fry) embark on an epic quest to find water and prove to Billy's son Junior (Goodman) that his old man is just as valiant as the larger animals on the plain.

En route, Billy and Socrates befriend the exiles from other continents as they search for the source of the water.

Animals United lacks the visual sophistication and breathtaking realism of Pixar and DreamWorks’ recent animated offerings.

Water doesn’t flow convincingly and some of the set-pieces are borrowed from earlier pictures, including Socrates’s trek into an elephants’ graveyard (The Lion King) and the massive caravan of animals in search of hope (Ice Age).

Humour, what little there is, skews towards younger audiences, including a protracted sequence in which Billy plays a version of golf with a ball of sun-hardened “hyena poo poo”.

Vocal performances lack energy, matching the pedestrian pacing of the rest of the film, which builds to a perplexing finale in which the creatures take their argument to the United Nations.

“It appears the animals are going to make us accountable for our actions,” observes a TV reporter.

Someone has to.