Dir: Tim Harper | With the voices of: Amandla Stenberg, Dean-Charles Chapman, Donald Sutherland, Laura Dern | Animation 97’
Ozi is an adorable orphan orangutan who is separated from her family during a manmade fire and uses her special influencer skills to save her forest and home from deforestation.
It’s a measure of the increasingly high profile that animated features are enjoying that the late Donald Sutherland lent to this film his vocal talents to the role of a crocodile called ‘Smiley’ (rather aptly since Sutherland’s menacing smile had long been a characteristic of his)
Ozi himself is a cute little tyke, with a mop of bright red hair, big brown eyes, secure in her cuteness for her father to plead vainly “Don’t do the eyes!”, blessed with a worldly wit and able to operate an ipad.
Human rapaciousness inevitably gets short shrift; humanity’s Humanity’s saving grave coming in the form of two friendly forest rangers. @RichardChatten
IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS FROM 16 August 2024
you can watch the trailer HERE.