Spy Cat

Stars: Voices: Karoline Mask von Oppen, Tom Zahner, Tony Clark, Phil Lewis, Manon Kahle, Susan Tackenberg, Mark Rossman, Mike McAlpine

Director: Wolfgang & Christophe Lowenstein

Quite a jolly cartoon feature, bright and colourful and nicely (CGI) animated, which starts well, sags in the middle and soars again at the end. But, released just after the Easter holidays, it's hard to see its market. This cat, alas, seems to have missed the boat.

Marnie (von Oppen) is an intelligent, chubby orange cat who lives with her adoring owner Miss Sunshine (Tackenberg), loves superheroes on junior TV and has even learned to sit at table and eat with a fork.

But then the woman's bad penny brother turns up, ostensibly in a wheelchair, but in reality very mobile and the brains behind a series of robberies in Drabville, where Marnie and her owner live, and where nothing ever happens - till now...

The cat soon senses something is up, and uses her toy camera to take a picture of the miscreant out of his (fake) plaster cast and wheelchair. But he tricks her into thinking he's a lawman, tells her she's now agent Marnie Sunshine, and dispatches her in a box to the North Pole.

Things of course don't turn out that way, and Marnie finds herself on the run with three other fugitives, a cowardly guard dog, Elvis (Zahner) who's failed to prevent the thieves from ransacking his home, Eggbert (Clark) a rooster who's too tired and peace-loving to service his hens, and a zebra (Lewis), who turns out to be a donkey in disguise.

This road trip section of the film goes on too long, enlivened only by a few ruderies for the kids, before things literally get aloft in the airborne finale. And there's a very funny chicken joke right at the end.

David Quinlan

Germany/Belgium/India/Czech Republic 2018. UK Distributor: Signature. Colour (unspecified).
91 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: PG.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 26 Apr 2019