Movies starring animals can entertain audiences with their comedic and heartfelt stories. Everyone has their favorite dog movie that’s capable of making them both laugh and cry. While some animal stories can entice and emotionally move viewers, others strangely rely on too much comedy or fantasy, ultimately leading to their detriment.
Animated movies like Shark Tale focus too much on cheap laughs and overused plot lines to provide anything of substance. Furthermore, popular animal characters in Tom & Jerry and Garfield feel like soulless reproductions in their film adaptations. Some of the worst animal movies either have poor production or overly strange storylines that leave audiences scratching their heads. Whether they are animated or live-action, these films lean too heavily on either comedic or straight-up bizarre themes for them to leave a proper impact.
10 Hop
Hop may center on the timeless icon of the Easter Bunny, but the film is too random to be a fan favorite. With clunky CGI, cheap humor, and a bizarre conflict, it’s difficult to take away a warm and fuzzy message.
The movie mostly focuses on the adventure of the first human Easter Bunny, but it doesn’t end there. There is a strange subplot about a chick named Carlos who wants to steal Easter from the bunnies. Russel Brand as the voice of E.B. is also distracting, as his voice is very recognizable. Hop’s jumbled plot mixed with its random and childish jokes inevitably makes this fun family adventure feel more like a rotten egg.
9 Open Season
Open Season explores the fight between wilderness creatures and humans with odd slapstick and an even weirder villain. A grizzly bear named Boog grows up in the human world but must learn to survive in the forest. Along the way, he encounters a deer named Elliot, who claims he knows how to show Boog the ropes.
The strangest part about Open Season stems from its brand of humor. When the movie isn’t lofting uncreative fart humor at its audience, it focuses on the strange obsession of Shaw, a brutal hunter. Shaw hunts because he believes animals will replace humans in society if they aren’t exterminated. While his obsessions supply some laughs, the entire plot is still a wild mess.
8 Tom & Jerry
Many people have grown up with the classic cat-and-mouse chase of Tom & Jerry. Unfortunately, its 2021 film adaptation bizarrely focuses more on its fictional human players than it does on its two main characters.
The slapstick between Tom and Jerry is still hilarious, but sadly, the story centers on the woes of a human named Kayla. Naturally, Tom and Jerry get mixed up in the human world, but that’s where all the laughs die. Tom & Jerry’s charm will always come from its inventive chase scenes and unapologetically violent physical humor. When the film makes the strange decision to reduce those moments in favor of humans, it loses its appeal.
7 Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
Released as a sequel to Garfield: The Movie, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties takes the iconic orange cat audiences know and love and drops him into a weird royal plot line. After Garfield and a palace cat named Prince switch places in England, they must try to set things right.
The idea itself has some potential, but it’s overshadowed by a random master plan by Lord Manfred Dargis, who is plotting to kill the castle’s animals and build a resort. This villain plot feels out of place in a movie about Garfield. Ultimately, it is this lame idea combined with limp humor that makes Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties a messy furball of a flick.
6 Beverly Hills Chihuahua
The title Beverly Hills Chihuahua alone should already signify this film is one of Disney’s most bizarre releases to date. In this animal adventure, a pampered Chihuahua named Chloe gets dognapped in Mexico City and must find her way home. During her journey, she meets allies including another Chihuahua named Papi and a German shepherd named Delgado.
Although the plot packs plenty of randomness, it’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua’s main characters that raise the most eyebrows. All of these dogs are real, but they have unsettling CGI mouths pasted to them whenever they talk. Their moving lips matched with their expressionless eyes are too distracting to make any part of this movie enjoyable.
5 Shark Tale
Dreamworks’ Shark Tale has a surprisingly stacked cast composed of Will Smith, Jack Black, Renée Zellweger, Martin Scorsese, Angelina Jolie, and Robert Di Nero. Nonetheless, this movie’s tired plot and weird animation turn any potential it has into fish chum.
The film’s main problem is Oscar, who is a completely selfish and unlikable protagonist. Oscar is a fish who longs to be rich and famous. While his personal journey involves developing gratitude and humility, he also constantly lies, cheats, and puts his friends in danger. To top it all off, the film’scharacter designs are ugly and warped, making every fish unappealing to watch. Despite Dreamworks’ animated talents, Shark Taleis just one strange eyesore.
4 Cats and Dogs
Cats and Dogs might initially trick viewers into thinking its story revolves around cute and cuddly animals, but this film is actually a wacky spy-comedy flick, complete with a white Persian cat dictator. With poor CGI slapstick and a distracted cast of animals, there is practically nothing about this movie that makes sense.
Cats and Dogs focuses on a beagle named Lou who longs for adventure. Ultimately, he gets wrapped up in a bizarre mission to save dogs from the tyranny of cats. One of the most jarring scenes of the film is when the main villain, Mr. Tinkles, delivers a speech to his followers with imagery reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Choices like this leave viewers scratching their heads and wondering what on Earth they are evening watching.
3 The Search for Santa Paws
As one of the many Air Bud spin-off movies, The Search for Santa Paws is not only a wildly strange animal story but a truly wacky Christmas flick. The premise is about a stuffed dog who is summoned to life by the great Christmas icicle and given to Santa as a gift. The dog, named Paws, eventually gets separated from Santa in New York City right before Christmas.
There are many odd elements in The Search for Santa Paws, but perhaps the most jarring aspect is it is very depressing. The supposedly fun adventure features an orphanage of mistreated girls, a Santa with amnesia, and a traumatizing scene where Paws transforms back into a stuffed dog in front of a distressed child. The whole movie feels like a strange nightmare rather than a fun Christmas fantasy.
2 Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Based on the popular novel by the same name, Jonathan Livingston Seagull focuses on a seagull who wishes to achieve perfect speed when flying. After Jonathan the seagull is labeled an outcast in his flock, he embarks on a spiritual adventure that gives him the ability to travel through space and time.
If that wasn’t weird enough, the entire 1973 production of Jonathan Livingston Seagull allegedly harmed and killed real seagulls during its few dramatic moments. Furthermore, the movie features very little dialogue and instead chooses to play original Neil Diamond songs with nonsensical lyrics. The entire experience is puzzling at best and extremely disturbing at worst.
1 Food Fight
Ranked as one of the worst movies of all time on Rotten Tomatoes, Food Fight is an animated catastrophe with too many strange moments to count. The film follows Dex Dogtective and his animal counterparts as they try to save Marketropolis from the evil Lady X.
Food Fight’s animation is so poorly rendered that it’s difficult to understand what the characters are doing most of the time. Not only that, but the entire film uses shameless product placement for most of its characters. The entire production is a random mess from start to finish, which makes it entertaining to some viewers but downright intolerable to most.