Jungle Beat

“Jungle Beat” is welcome as a rare G-rated animated feature, even if it confirms the stereotype of “for all audience” films as a bit babyish and slow. Young children may enjoy the colorful jungle animal characters and sweet storyline about hugs and affirmations but anyone over age nine may find that it is overlong and a bit dull. It’s better suited to its original form as a TV series.

A group of jungle animals are surprised to find that all of a sudden they can not only talk but speak fluent English (in the series it’s just pointing and grunting). A new arrival, a purple alien from another planet named Fneep (Ed Kear), has a communications device that gives anyone nearby the power of speech. The animals are very excited and happy, especially the monkey named Munki (David Menkin) and the elephant named Trunk (Ina Marie Smith), Rocky the hippo Rocky (also David Menkin) and Humph the hedgehog (David Guerrasio). They are happy to have Fneep as a friend and offer to help him get back to his spaceship, which has crashed in another part of the jungle.

What they don’t know is why Fneep has come to earth. The people (for want of a better word) of his planet have only one goal, conquering as many planets as possible. This is Fneep’s first time, and if he does not conquer earth, it will be a humiliating defeat. Humiliation is one of what are apparently only two emotions on Fneep’s planet. The other is triumph. There is a funny scene when Freep tries to press the help button on the crashed spaceship letting us know that on Freep’s planet, failure is literally not an option.

The character design is just fair but the animation has some vigor and a strong sense of three-dimensional spaces that keep the action scenes lively. It takes a while to get there but the sweet message of friendship and kindness is delivered sweetly and it is all too rare to see a story where being nice is triumph of its own.

Parents should know that this movie has some mild peril and hurtful parental disapproval.

Family discussion: What does friendship feel like to you? Why didn’t Fneep’s planet know about kindness and friendship? Would you like to explore other planets?

If you like this, try: “Planet 51” and “Monsters vs. Aliens”