Here’s an animation conceived on traditional and indeed unoriginal lines, rather like The Lion King – but entertaining and likable for all that. Ferdinand is a young bull calf, brought up in the Spanish countryside and trained to fight matadors in the ring, but this sensitive soul would rather grow flowers. When an emotionally wrenching disaster strikes, Ferdinand escapes the farm and finds brief happiness with a human family who are in the flower business. He grows to a mighty size, content with his floral lot, but this gentle giant cannot escape his destiny in the terrible gladiatorial arena of blood and sand.
Perhaps bizarrely, this brought to mind Tommy Steele playing a hapless bullfighter in an ancient 50s British comedy called Tommy the Toreador, singing a cheesy number called Little White Bull. The voices here are an eccentric mix of American English, English with a Spanish accent, Spanish – and also English with a Scottish accent, this last being David Tennant’s. Nothing mould-breaking, but unassumingly enjoyable.
