The truth about farm animals is that no matter how humane the farmer (or how lush the rolling meadows, or how slop-filled the pen), they're all kept around to produce food products, and eventually, that means death by unnatural causes. Otherwise, it's not really farming, is it? An honest children's tale at least acknowledges that fact, and the classic Charlotte's Web turned it into a note of great poignancy, because even prize-winning pigs and their eight-legged friends have to come to terms with the inevitable. When a patriarchal cow dies in the hideous new animated film Barnyard, he's actually buried six feet under with a ceremony and a tombstone—no steak, no rump roast, not even a pile of tripe. It may seem unfair to expect realism from a movie about anthropomorphic party-animals who walk around on their hind legs, but the film crosses the line. What makes them animals? What makes this a farm? What would George Orwell think?
Trouncing around upright with their udders hanging out (and since when do bulls have udders?), bearing the creepy musculature of offensive linemen, the cows are the stars of Barnyard, assigned with protecting the other animals from encroaching coyotes. The wise elder cow Ben (voiced by Sam Elliott) takes the job seriously, while his Poochie-esque son Otis (voice by Kevin James) surfs down hills, takes the farmer's car for joyrides, fronts a rock band, and gets into other such forms of mischief. When Ben is killed defending the farm, Otis reluctantly accepts a leadership role that requires him to grow up fast. He also bats eyes at an earnest heifer (Courteney Cox) with a bow in her hair and a baby on the way.
It shouldn't be surprising that writer-director Steve Oedekerk, the man responsible for Kung Pow! Enter The Fist and the second Ace Ventura movie, considers single-celled organisms as he shoots for the lowest common denominator. But what is surprising is how quickly Barnyard abandons the silly puns and animal clowning for life lessons and gross sentimentality once Ben's ticket gets punched. It's hard to decide which Otis is more risible: the annoying goof-off with the cell phone and the Spuds MacKenzie attitude, or the neutered grown-up who realizes there's more to life than partying down. Perhaps the newly sensitized Otis would be more tender and juicy, if this film took place in a universe with slaughterhouses.