A tad too sad for little ones, but enjoy the ride

Wonder Park (PG) Verdict: Pixar wannabe

FOR parents looking to fill a rainy afternoon in the Easter holidays, Wonder Park just about fits the bill.

It’s the nicely animated tale of a girl called June (voiced by Brianna Denski), who has created an imaginary amusement park with her mother (Jennifer Garner).

Sadly — and, arguably for a film aimed at young children, rather too sadly — June’s mother is then diagnosed with what appears to be cancer and taken away for treatment.

Her father (Matthew Broderick) duly ships June off to summer camp. But she worries that he won’t be able to look after himself, and scarpers for home.

Soon, she’s lost in a forest where she finds an abandoned amusement park — the place of her imagination.

All her and her mother’s beloved animal creations are there, but the park is under threat from an army of tiny, impish chimpanzees, which adults in the audience will recognise as a metaphor for June’s mother’s illness (while possibly also recognising the overt influence of Pixar’s Inside Out).

At this point the animators indulge themselves with some surreal sequences that do nothing to help the story along.

Nonetheless, for wet afternoons only, Wonder Park will do.