Animal Crackers (2017 film)

**Animal Crackers** is a 2017 3D computer-animated comedy-fantasy film directed by Scott Christian Sava and Tony Bancroft, and written by Sava and Dean Lorey, based on the animal-shaped cookie and loosely based on the graphic novel by Sava. The film stars the voices of John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Danny DeVito, Ian McKellen, Sylvester Stallone, Patrick Warburton, Raven-Symoné, Harvey Fierstein, Gilbert Gottfried, Tara Strong, James Arnold Taylor, Kevin Grevioux, and introducing Lydia Rose Taylor. It tells the story of a family who comes across a box of magical animal crackers that turns anyone that consumes into the animal the cracker represents which comes in handy in saving the circus that the family was associated with.

The film premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 12th, 2017. It was released in China on July 21st, 2018. It was initially set to be released in the United States but faced multiple delays due to being picked up by various distributors, who faced financial difficulties.

It was officially released on Netflix on July 24th, 2020 and received mixed reviews from critics.

## Plot

In 1962, brothers Bob and Horatio Huntington run a traveling circus together, doing well in spite of their vastly different personalities. After a show, the circus' resident gypsy fortune teller Esmerelda presents her beautiful niece, Talia, to her employers, asking them to give her a job. Bob and Horatio are both immediately smitten with the lovely woman, but her affections are solely for Bob.

When the pair announce their plans to marry in 1964, Horatio becomes furious and delivers an ultimatum to his brother to choose either him or Talia. Bob marries Talia and Esmerelda gives them a mysterious box as a wedding gift, which allows them to open a new circus. Buffalo Bob's Rootin' Tootin' Animal Circus, known for animals performing amazing and seemingly impossible feats.

Years later, Bob's nephew, Owen, marries his childhood friend Zoe at the circus where they had first met as kids. Following the initial excitement however, Owen soon discovers he now has to work as a taste tester for Zoe's father Mr. Woodley at his dog biscuit factory. His co-worker Binkley is trying to create a new type of dog biscuit which keeps getting ruined by Mr. Woodley's personal assistant Brock.

A few years later, Horatio, whose luck has taken a serious downturn since his fight and split with Bob, sneaks into Bob and Talia's dressing rooms, trying to find the secret to the magic animals, and accidentally starts a fire which apparently kills Bob and Talia. Their funeral is attended by Owen, Zoe, and their daughter Mackenzie. Horatio makes an unexpected visit and announces that he'll be taking over the circus. Huntington and his henchmen Mario Zucchini, Samson, Stabby, and El Diablo start a fight, causing the Huntingtons to leave.

Before they leave, circus pets Old Blue and Zena give the Huntingtons the mysterious box, they later discover it holds animal cracker cookies. Owen eats one and turns into a hamster. The Huntingtons return to the circus to figure out how this happened. They learn from clown Chesterfield that the animal crackers will turn the user into the animal they eat, but it contains only one human cookie to change them back. Later, he tells them they inherited the circus. Zoe is excited, but Owen, determined to please Mr. Woodley, decides to continue his job. Zoe restores the circus while Owen stays at the dog biscuit factory. Frustrated that Zoe quit her job, Mr. Woodley begins to consider Brock as her replacement.

Buffalo Bob's Rootin' Tootin' Animal Circus reopens, but is a disaster upon the discovery of no animals. Owen reluctantly decides to eat the animal crackers and performs stunts as an animal. By the end of the day, Owen grows to like it and decides to quit his job. As his finishes packing up though, Brock unwittingly eats one of the cookies and turns into a drill. To catch up with him, Owen turns into a lion, but Brock gets captured by Mario Zucchini, who also steals cookie pieces. Upon returning home, Owen soon discovers he has lost the human cookie and will remain an animal forever. He attempts to adapt to life as a different animal, but has little success. Binkley discovers the animal crackers and persuades Mr. Woodley to attend the circus.

At one performance, Horatio appears and offers Owen's gorilla form his human cookie (which Mario had also unknowingly stolen) in exchange for the circus. Owen refuses, thinking that remaining an animal will at least keep his family together, but he is forced into the deal by Horatio's hybridized henchmen as they help Horatio force-feed him the human cookie. The circus performers then come across the scene and a fight breaks out, with some of them assuming animal forms to fight.

As his henchmen are defeated, Horatio eats some crackers and turns into a chimera. He then is confronted by Old Blue and Zena who reveal themselves as Bob and Talia, alive but forever trapped in animal form due to the destruction of their human cookies in the fire. They ask Horatio to redeem himself, but he refuses. Horatio flies up, grasping them. Owen uses Bullet-Man in his rhinoceros form to shoot down Horatio as he, Horatio and Bob land in the net while Mackenzie turns into a monkey to save Talia. Afterwards, Owen, Zoe, and Mackenzie, and the circus performers work together to subdue Horatio. As Horatio vows to have his revenge, Owen turns him into a hamster as Bullet Man quotes "In Memoriam A.H.H." from Alfred Lord Tennyson.

As the circus performers, Zoe, and Mackenzie regain their human forms, Chesterfield gleefully tells the caged henchmen that their human cookies are broken as a side-effect of eating the broken pieces and it will take him awhile to figure out whose parts go to whom. Mario subsequently tells Chesterfield to take his time, with the others in agreement. Horatio demands to be released from his hamster cage to no avail.

Having witnessed the performance and Brock still being in drill form, Mr. Woodley reevaluates his views on both Owen and the circus. With Binkley, he decides to create a new circus souvenir using her failed experiments. By the next show, they have made animal crackers that cause the eater's skin to temporarily take on the color and patterns of the animal whose cracker they eat. Owen consumes a new dragon animal cracker that just appeared in the box and takes the stage in his new animal form.

## Gallery

TaliaZoe & Mackenzie, reacting to Owen’s hamster form."Whoo-hoo!"