The story concerns the coming of age of Simba -- excuse me, Otis (voice of Kevin James), an irresponsible young cow whose father, Ben (Sam Elliott), is the august leader of the barnyard. Ben holds the barnyard morning meetings, keeps watch at night against coyotes, and dispenses homilies like ``A strong man stands up for himself. A stronger man stands up for others."
Otis is having too much fun being a party animal to pay attention until the unthinkable happens and he has to step up to the plate. Can crippling guilt and the love of a pregnant heifer named Nala -- sorry, Daisy (Courteney Cox) -- overcome his urge to go human-tipping with a crew of ``Sopranos"-accented Jersey cows?
I'm not making this up; I don't think I could without drinking a punch-bowl of Ritalin mixed with cough syrup. ``Barnyard" gives us a shiny, rather ugly world of humanoid beasties; it's as if a bunch of Little Tykes toys had been given life and stroppy attitudes. There are humans here, but they're grotesque and few, and the gag is that the animals have to hide from them their ability to use cellphones and drive cars. You may be willing to suspend your disbelief to buy that, but you'll probably stop short at the movie's extremely odd notion that male cows have udders.
That's right: udders. Did no one involved with this movie bother to Google the word ``bull"? Have we in fact wandered onto a top-secret genetic research station? (That would explain the rapping rat and the giant mutant chick.) Sure, it's a family film and no one wants to spoil the party with details, but I say give the kiddies the straight anatomical dope, more or less, so they won't be in for a terrible surprise when they wander into a field with a milk pail some day.
