French director Luc Jacquet, who explored Disney territory two years ago with family-friendly March Of The Penguins, returns for another animal adventure, where wildlife footage is wrapped with a yarn about a winsome French child (Bertille Noel-Bruneau), who finds a cute fox cub foraging for food on her way home from school and tries to approach it. Eventually the pair become friends, but things go awry when the girl tries to tame the wild animal.

Narrated by Kate Winslet in a style that is fairly anthropomorphic, but not sickeningly so, the film follows the vixen from adolescent to single mother, although it never mentions whether foxes mate for life or if the older foxes have midlife crises and just want to keep pairing off with hot young things.

Even at 92 minutes, the story feels stretched, and younger kids and older parents may find themselves nodding off in sympathy as foxes, hedgehogs and bears enjoy low-calorie escapades. Still, it’s refreshing to see an animal movie in which the animals don’t talk, sing or cooperate in the marketing of fast-food restaurants even though city dwellers, whose experience of fox sightings are a rarity on a par with spotting a Starbucks, may be less charmed.

• On general release from Friday

Source: Scotsman.com News