Author Munro Leaf’s beloved children’s book is a pacifist primer intended to advise kids on how not to follow in the kamikaze footsteps of jingoistic bovines eager to lay down their lives on the field of honor. Disney’s 1938 short will forever remain the definitive adaptation, but that wasn’t enough to stop the gluttons at 20th Century Fox Animation from blowing it up into a 107 minute holiday blockbuster. If one must expose children to fables in which testosterone-fueled picadors gets their jollies by stabbing animals to death in the name of sport as thousands look on, there isn’t a better starting and stopping point than Ferdinand. The film is rife with anachronistic pop-culture throwaways. Changing our hero’s nickname from “Ferdinand the Fierce” to simply “F-Bomb” bombed, but I did have to chuckle when a decumbent nag whinnied, “I’ve fallen and I can’t giddyap!” (2017) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.