Eggcellent, endearingly bonkers fun

Little Eggs: An African Rescue (PG, 89 mins)

Directed by Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste and Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste

Reviewed Graeme Tuckett

Every week on this job I learn something new. Did you know, for instance, that there is a wildly successful and acclaimed series of animated movies from the Mexican film industry that follow the adventures of eggs – that grow to become chickens and roosters – and then have eggs of their own?

Nope, neither did I. But the home of Alfonso Cuaro´ n, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez In˜ a´ rritu and Tatiana Huezo is never to be underestimated. Critical acclaim in Mexico isn’t handed out to just anyone and if the great and the good of that great country reckon that Un Rescate de Huevitos is an export to be proud of then I am here for it.

And Little Eggs: An African Rescue (as the film is being released in English) is endearingly bonkers, just as often as it is shrill, annoying and . . . odd.

The Little Eggs are a couple of prize-winners on a chicken farm in rural Mexico. Their beauty and golden shells have attracted the attention of a Russian gangster – and egg collector – who has employed a couple of goons with radio-controlled moles to steal them. Yes, all of that happens.

More madness ensues and soon enough our eggs’ over-protective rooster and chicken mum and dad – and a selection of their animal besties – are on the run in Africa, or ‘‘The Congo’’, after hitching a ride on a plane.

Which somehow turns into a sub-plot about a talent show that is also quite possibly the best scene in the entire film.

Look, I wasn’t always following the twists and turns of Little Eggs:

An African Rescue. There’s only so much candy-coloured inanity I can take, especially that early in the morning.

In its original Spanish, I reckon this could have been a better film, or at least a more nuanced one. But the English-speaking cast are nothing if not committed.

And what I did keep up with was light, frothy and working very, very hard to be liked. Honestly, Little Eggs makes The Wiggles look like Kafka.

If you’re in charge of the entertainment options for a pack of under-8s – and you’ve already seen Strange World (seriously, it’s terrific) – then I reckon you’ll be happy that Little Eggs are here.

I Heard the Bells (PG, 110 mins) Directed by Joshua Enck Reviewed by James Croot ★★

Little Eggs: An African Rescue is now screening in select cinemas nationwide.

Five years ago it was the creator of A Christmas Carol getting the festive biopic treatment, this time it’s the author of 1863 poem-turned-hymn I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. Both stories focus on a once-feted writer who has fallen on hard times and is struggling for inspiration.

Bharat Nalluri’s The Man Who Invented Christmas’ detailing of the backstory that led Charles Dickens to write his 1843 classic was genuinely heartfelt and brilliantly cast.

This, however, has TV-movie production values (it feels like a throwback to the Christmasmorning movies of the 1980s and 90s), ponderous pacing and seemingly a faith-based agenda to peddle.

Bookended by quotes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow himself, I Heard the Bells details America’s then-greatest poet’s ‘‘secret sorrows’’ which left him ‘‘sad’’ rather than ‘‘cold’’, as he was sometimes publicly perceived.

With 1860 coming to an end and civil war seemingly looming, Longfellow (Stephen Atherholt) is constantly assailed with requests for words of comfort or uplift.

After all, he is the man whose works like The Song of Hiawatha and Paul Revere’s Ride had helped shape the national character and whose London sales frightened Dickens more than any ghosts – past or present.

However, Longfellow is the one still haunted by past actions and demons, and when tragedy robs him of his beloved second wife Fanny (Rachel Day Hughes), he vows never to write again.

Withdrawing from public life and engagement with his own children, Longfellow further despairs when his oldest son Charley (Jonathan Blair) defies him and enlists for the now ignited internal conflict.

When the next moment of crisis comes though, Longfellow will need to break out of his torpor if he is to prevent more tragedy and find a path back to his family.

The little-known Atherholt and, in particular, Hughes do their best to make this period drama emotive and compelling but they are saddled with a lumpen, leaden script and, in Atherholt’s case, some rather distracting facial fungus.

Longfellow’s melancholy is perfectly understandable, but the film seems to wallow in it.

The lack of action is replaced by pontificating and poetry-spouting, punctuated by a tinkly piano score, none of which truly threatens the tear ducts in the way the filmmakers (whose last outing was 2019’s Noah the Musical) might have hoped.

I Heard the Bells is screening now in select cinemas.