Robbie COLLIN
★★★★★
Dir: Thea Sharrock
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Danny Devito, Angelina Jolie, Brooklynn Prince, Helen Mirren (voices); Bryan Cranston, Ariana Greenblatt
Robbie Collin
When a film about a talking gorilla opens with a “based on a true story” caption, it’s tempting to raise a sceptical eyebrow: chances are, we’re not in the heart of Dian Fossey territory. And sure enough, Thea Sharrock’s digitally augmented Disney fable is a hop and a skip from the facts, having been adapted from a 2012 children’s book inspired in turn by the story of a western lowland silverback which became a minor cause célèbre in Nineties America.
The real Ivan was brought to the US in the early Sixties, having been rescued from poachers in Africa. He then spent 27 years of his life in a sad concrete enclosure at a suburban shopping centre, until local welfare groups secured him a more humane retirement at Atlanta Zoo. This considerably softened take on the poor creature’s plight is hardly great cinema, but it’s a hearty cob of honest corn, served buttery and sweet.
Gentle antics are the order of the day, while parents can pass the time by identifying members of its bizarrely high-profile voice-cast. Ivan, who’s ruminatively voiced by Sam Rockwell, is the star attraction at an improbable circus (which is also a video arcade and a ten-pin-bowling complex), and spends his days stamping and grunting for the amusement of ever-dwindling crowds. His fellow performers include a chicken (Chaka Khan), a poodle (Helen Mirren) and a wise mother elephant (Angelina Jolie).
Bryan Cranston plays their human ringmaster, a fading old ham who affects an English accent on stage, and whose affection for his animals is matched only by his obliviousness to the fact that they might not ideally be locked up inside a mall. Rather, it’s his assistant keeper’s young daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) who realises that there should be more to life for this eccentric menagerie; she encourages Ivan to take up drawing and allow his sensitive side to balance out the swagger he puts on for his public. Meanwhile, Danny Devito scampers around everyone’s heels as a stray mutt, and The Florida Project’s Brooklynn Prince voices a baby elephant, who out-cutes Tim Burton’s live-action Dumbo in seconds.
There’s a moonlit escape, naturally, as well as episodes of stage fright, self-doubt and even a heart-tugging bereavement. The CG creatures might lack the mega-budget finesse of the cast of Disney’s recent Lion King remake, but all are physically persuasive and amiable presences.
Long before anyone seriously imagined the Disney+ service would become a platform for $200million blockbusters such as Mulan, The One and Only Ivan was the kind of light and breezy entertainment for which it seemed tailor-made. There are no bold, chest-beating leaps here, but for its young target audience, there are no galumphing missteps either.