Chances are that if you’ve seen the cover of this film in the DVD rental store, you thought it to be a cheap cash-in attempt for parents with animation-crazed children.

The opening few frames of the movie will immediately seem to support your suspicions, but if you were to let it play just a little while longer, you’ll discover animation like we very rarely see.

It’s not perfect and lacks the polish so prevalent in animated feature films these days, but it has a certain appeal to it – one that I couldn’t put my finger on immediately, until it suddenly struck me: it’s exactly in its lack of visual perfection that the magic lies.

Much like the animated movies of old, this is not the kind of animation where you can see every sweat drop on the face of the hero; instead, the heads are slightly too elongated and the characters seem a little out of place, but the artistic direction is nevertheless superb in its own, cracked way.

But then the narration starts, quickly followed by the characters opening their mouths, and the charming animation is bumped aside by the unbelievably awful voice work. What is so astounding about this, is the host of big names who gave voice to the characters: Sigourney Weaver, Stanley Tucci, Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson, Kevin Kline, and William H. Macy are but a few that come to mind.

Despite these experienced actors waxing lyrical, the voice work is simply atrocious. The characters sound two-dimensional and supremely scripted – almost as if zero thought or preparation went into it and the first take was simply kept.

The result is characters who sound bloated and forced, completely offsetting the animation.

It’s truly sad for the rest of the film is a pleasure to watch from an artistic point of view – great art direction and massively imaginative environs abound. If this was a silent movie it would have been better.

Fortunately the story begins to pick up pace towards the second half, thankfully helping you to ignore the awful voice work as you are drawn in and are left feeling fairly happy by the time the credits begin to roll.

Ultimately it’s a movie that kids will enjoy more than adults, but if you were to watch it with them the quality of the art work should make it not feel like a complete waste of time.