"Die Konferenz der Tiere" or "Animals United" is an animated film directed by Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe. They are joined by writer Oliver Huzly and these three also worked on new version of Urmel movies (Augsburg Puppenkiste) before this film. It is about a group of wild animals including meerkats, turtles, rhinos, monkeys, giraffes, a cock and many more who struggle due to lack of water. This is the central plot, but I felt the film succeeded much more with its sub-plots. I thought the two old turtles were the highlight of the film. The scenes with their deaths and the comets was just amazingly sad. And the voices fit them nicely too. I also liked the monkey who sort-of was with the humans initially. I did not really like the cock, even if I love Christoph Maria Herbst and I could have done without this character. In general, occasionally, it felt as if the movie could have been better if they had simply included less animal characters and maybe elaborated a bit more on these. The small background stories did not work so well for everybody as they did with the turtles. For example, the whole rhino-buffalo fight did nothing really for me.I did not know too many from the voice cast, really only Kalkofe and Herbst (Wixxxer reunion) and I think I heard about Fritsch too in the past. The English dub has the great Stephen Fry which should be reason enough for you to watch it if you're American or British. The father-son relationship between the meerkats was a great idea and I wish they elaborated a bit more on it, maybe by telling us about the two and how they lived together in the past. When the young meerkat is happy in the end that daddy saved the day it felt a bit out of place. Such a shame they did not develop this idea further. It could have lifted the film up a lot. The insect plague at some point almost had something biblical just like the whole animal gathering scenes and how they stayed in peace with each other for a while to find a solution to their thirst problem. The march to the UN building was okay as well.I think as a whole this film may be more suitable for younger audiences, but I believe thanks to its morale it can also make a good watch for adults who like animated movies. I don't think it is half as bad as some people say it is. Some animals were more interesting than others sure, but there were no extremely negative standouts and same goes for the animation. German singer Xavier Naidoo does a good song for the closing credits, but I am a bit biased here I guess as I like his voice in general. I thought the song fit the film nicely. On a completely random note, the final scene at the closing credits with the mole reminded me a bit of the same from "Monsters University". Anyway, solid movie. Recommended.

You have to give credit to the Germans for trying, it's not the worst animated film in the world but not the best ever. Some scenes were confusing, such as the hunter being knocked out and having his aircraft crashing in the valley, then moments later re-appears in his room to grab more guns. (spoilers, whoops)The animation was fantastic, but doesn't scream Pixar-fantastic. Lip sync could've been better, because some scenes lip syncs were in English, others in German with English dubs.Overall, this makes a decent youth animation for children. But if you're a film enthusiast, you probably shouldn't watch this if you don't want your perfection expectations to fall low. All I can say is, the Germans did a splendid job at the animation side, just not so well with the storyline (movie mistakes and whatnot) and voice dubs. Good job, lads.

Despite trying with some cheap jokes, the overall tone of this movie is rather dark, but what really bothers me is the inconsistency of the story and the overabundance of factual errors and improbabilities, in this movie we have African buffaloes with fur, upper incisors and (in the German dub) a Spanish accent, saltwater fish in a large open-top tank in either Botswana, Namibia or Angola (evaporation apparently being a non-issue for these tanks), animals from all over the globe who arrive in these landlocked regions after leaving a bathtub they used to cross the oceans, a biplane with an ATGM launcher, etc.. The worst of all these factual errors, IMHO, are the vegetarian lion - the rest of the carnivorous protagonists don't seem to eat anything either - and the dam closing in all water (instead of letting through roughly the same amount as before since otherwise it would simply spill over), because these are obvious plot devices to indoctrinate children with the political messages of this movie (meat is bad, mankind is evil).

I am a teenager and i saw this movie, it was on Netflix and i thought id watch it because i love animated kids movies, i sincerely regret watching it. the plot, what plot? the movie was all over the place, it was like the animators just threw in a bunch of characters and just called it a movie, this movie literally just had a bunch of random characters come in, there were two random turtles, a kangaroo, a koala, a Tasmanian Devil, a random polar bear, oh don't even get me started on the polar bear, and a chicken, along with a bunch of safari animals. there was a damn polar bear in the safari, how?!? there were no back stories, no character or plot back stories, like how did the turtles, kangaroo, taz devil, polar bear and a chicken, get a damn floating bathtub and end up all together, and float onto the banks of the safari? i mean come on people, oh and i wasn't paying attention at the end but why were all the animals in new York or whatever city they went to? and also the voice synchronization was horrible, do not watch this movie!