Two By Two: Overboard! (U)

The giant ark is adrift on open seas with best friends Finny and Leah safely on board. Alas, food stocks are running low, jeopardising the fragile peace between carnivores and herbivores. Fate cruelly intervenes and washes the two plucky youngsters overboard. Leah is marooned on a remote island with adorable new pal Jelly. Meanwhile, Finny finds himself among a strange colony of friendly creatures, whose existence is threatened by the rumblings of a volcano.

LondonNet Film Review
Two By Two: Overboard! (U)

The alarmist subtitle of Toby Genkel and Sean McCormack’s computer-animated adventure, replete with dramatic punctuation, suggests pent-up enthusiasm waiting to explode on the big screen. Sadly, the sequel to the 2015 European co-production Two By Two adopts a low, steady rate of knots as it continues to expand the biblical story of Noah from chapters of the book of Genesis into a heartfelt sermon about never judging a creature by its appearance. The original looked to the Ice Age films for inspiration and the follow-up continues with the introduction of a mishap-prone white dove, which shares some creative DNA with equally unfortunate Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel…

Visual sophistication is lacking, which is particularly noticeable when characters and inanimate objects like barrels interact with water and produce disconcertingly few splashes or ripples. Vocal performances also fail to go overboard including McFly founder Tom Fletcher and his wife Giovanna as a pair of bickering guards with brightly coloured fur. Fleeting humour is simplistic and aimed at younger audiences including a limp running joke involving a tardy hippopotamus, which thunders in at the end of scenes and gasps breathlessly, “What did I miss?” As pantomime season beckons, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone indulges the wheezing ungulate and answers back: “Not much.”

After 147 days at sea aboard Noah’s ark, food supplies are dwindling, jeopardising the fragile peace between surviving pairs of carnivores and herbivores. The boat’s head chef, Nestrian father Dave (voiced by Dermot Magennis), hopes to avoid a bloodbath by making a little go a long way. His bowls laden with pungent green slop fail to curry favour. “If the food doesn’t improve, I’m putting Nestrian a l’orange on the menu!” snarls lion Leonard (Alan Stanford), who is captain of the hulking vessel in Noah’s absence.

During a visit to the ship’s food store, Dave’s young son Finny (Callum Maloney) and hyena-like Grymp best friend Leah (Ava Connolly) tumble into the sea. Leah is marooned on an island with a tentacled new pal, Jelly (Carly Kane). Meanwhile, Finny is warmly embraced by a colony of fellow Nestrians led by the charismatic Patch (Mary Murray), who has foolishly established her community on the sea floor in the shadow of a rumbling volcano. As Mother Nature prepares to roar, Finny follows his species’ alliterative yet grammatically clumsy mantra – “Nestrians never neglect no-one in need” – to repair strained links in the food chain and promote co-operation to all creatures great and small.

Two By Two: Overboard! is disappointingly smooth sailing though familiar channels, with few dramatic swells to place any of the characters in palpable jeopardy. The script treads water for extended periods but the sprightly running time is a blessed concession to the short attention spans of the target audience.

– Jo Planter