★★★★☆
Just in time for Christmas: a cockle-warming kids’ animation about bonhomie, brotherhood, bravery and bullfighting. Hang on — bullfighting? That doesn’t exactly scream “festive family bonanza”. Relax, though — no spears, no goring, no vicious bovine cruelty here. Ferdinand, you see, is a non-fighting bull. Voiced with an appropriate blend of muscularity and geniality by the former wrestler John Cena, he prefers smelling flowers to butting heads, dancing with music rather than matadors.
An English-language film from the Brazilian director Carlos Saldanha, a veteran of the Rio and Ice Age franchises, Ferdinand was adapted from The Story of Ferdinand, the children’s classic by Munro Leaf. The book was written in 1936, when people still had memories of conscientious objectors, and was held up