Despite the trailer looking absolutely dreadful, being an animation buff and seeing that it had some good actors in the vocal cast I still saw it anyway. It wasn't a complete disaster and there are worse animated films around, but The Nut Job was lacking in a lot of ways and from my point of view the weakest of the handful of animations seen so far. Which have been actually a solid handful with How to Train Your Dragon 2 and The Lego Movie being the best. The Nut Job does have some good things, the best thing being the animation which was great, very colourful and vibrant with a lot of admirable detail and the characters look cute(even if Buddy looks eerily looks like Remy from Ratatouille). The soundtrack is also bright and breezy, there were a few moments where I did chuckle and there are a few of the voice actors that acquitted themselves well. Maya Rudolph was a standout, she is very bubbly and really comes alive, Stephen Lang plays gruff really well and Liam Neeson while deserving far better is adequately menacing and shady. Jeff Dunham tries his best too, despite being saddled with some of the worst of the humour with that of the two groundhogs managing to be worst. Will Arnett however takes Surly's purposefully surly personality to extremes and is far too snarky and smug, despite his cute appearance Surly is a very unlikeable character. Katherine Heigl sounds to me too romantic-comedy-ish, not that she does it badly but it doesn't fit the character, too humdrum and cutesy. Brendan Fraser is a likable actor but he and his supposedly heroic character Grayson really grate, not like Fraser at all usually. The characters(forgetting the very uninspired names for a second) are too underdeveloped and shallow in personality to be likable(with Buddy and Maya being slight exceptions),a lot of them with character arcs that don't go anywhere. Despite Neeson's voice work Racoon is too underwritten to be believable as a villain and Surly is very difficult to root for. But it's the lazy writing that hurts The Nut Job, filled with conflicts that come across as hackneyed and things resolve too tediously at times. Despite the odd amusing moments, the jokes border on dumb rather than witty and are not funny, and the bathroom humour also borders on juvenile and distasteful. The story in terms of subplotting is busy but a lot of those subplots lack development and most like the romance are contrived, a case of too many ideas and themes not explored enough. It was already a flimsy premise and with the interminably stretched out pacing(the human mobsters scenes bring the film to a halt) and very derivative story-telling- you are constantly reminding yourself "where have I seen that before"- it feels even flimsier in execution. And to add further insult to injury, The Nut Job ends with a Gangnam Style sequence, which is one of the most annoying, repetitive and overplayed songs ever and definitely belongs on a list of "songs that you are already sick of after 5 hearings", in fact calling it a song is somewhat insulting. All in all, a mediocre animated film that has great animation but (very) lazy writing. 4/10 Bethany Cox

In an Oakton city park opposite the bank, Surly the Squirrel (Will Arnett) is an outcast with his rat partner Buddy often stealing nuts from everybody. Raccoon (Liam Neeson) is the manipulating leader of the park and he finds the nut storage at a low. He sends out squirrels Andie (Katherine Heigl) and Grayson (Brendan Fraser) to take from a newly arrived nut vendor cart. Surly refuses to cooperate. The cart vendor turns out to be the lookout for a bank robbery. The stolen cart is launched into the tree burning it down. Surly is banished from the park.

Animation has advanced so far that this is really only good for a TV movie on one of those kids channels. The animation is kind of grimy at times but it's good enough for TV. Surly is a rogue character. His sidekick Buddy needs to have a comedic voice. In order to create better group chemistry, he needs to invite Andie to join him in the caper. Also they already broke into the place before which makes breaking in again and again not as interesting. The caper isn't quite as fun as it should be. The start is fine but it gets repetitive. It just gets tiresome and the short running time feels over-extended.

Surley (Will Arnett) is a hard working libertarian prepper squirrel. He comes across a big score with a wagon that vends roasted nuts. Andie (Katherine Heigl),the cute liberal squirrel wants Surley to share his find with the group, that haven't been able to save up enough food for the winter in Liberty Park of Oakton.

Through a series of circumstances, the park stash gets destroyed and Surley is blamed. The head coon (Liam Neeson) banishes Surley to the city where our resourceful libertarian discovers a horde of nuts which Andie butts in and wants him to share. He discovers the head coon wants to control the food supply so he can control the masses...or at least the 47% ers. Grayson (Brendan Fraser) is the puffed chest phoney conservative hero who takes credit for the work done by the libertarian. But only by working together can they get rid of the coon in power.

While they are planning an Ocean's Eleven heist of the nuts, the humans are planning a bank robbery.

Great film for the kids so they can tell their teacher they are "getting a nut". Also, stealing is good. Let me know how this works out for you.