"Postman Pat: The Movie" (The Guardian 23/05/14)

Postman Pat: The Movie **

Dir: Mike Disa. Animation with the voices of: David Tennant, Rupert Grint, Jim Broadbent. 88 mins. Cert: U

Culture shock for the over-nines: here is New Pat – computer-animated, married, with a son called Julian (!) and the voice of Stephen Mangan – puttering round a conspicuously inclusive Greendale. Stick-in-the-muds may cavil, though the only truly objectionable aspect of Mike Disa’s modernisation is its reliance on that In-Cowell-We-Trust trope worn thin by recent kiddie sequels, necessitating its hero’s participation in televised talent lojinks. Sly incidental jokes about Pat’s place in the mediascape amuse, but The Lego Movie set the bar high for such knowing brand optimisation: Disa can’t really satirise society’s homogenised speed-freakery when his songs feature Ronan Keating and his animation looks scarcely finished.

Postman Pat: The Movie opens in cinemas nationwide today.