OK, before I start listing why the movie really doesn't work, I'll give it the only credit it really deserves: the animation is good and it's really the highlight of the movie.And now that we got that out of the way, let's start listing the cons, and what better way to start off with no one other than the main douchebag himself, Surly. Oh dear god, Surly. Whom I think might be one of the most hateful and most douchebag characters that we are supposed to find likable in the medium of animation since Buck from Chicken Little. I mean by god, he is the protagonist. THE PROTAGONIST. You would think some likability would be found in what is supposed to be our protagonist, but no. Surly blows up the tree where they had all the food, but it's OK because Racoon is the bad guy? Oh and what about the fact that he basically abuses his supportive and caring friend but it's OK because they turn friends at the end and go dance to Gangnam Style?The plot of the movie is literally "A Bug's Life + Over the Hedge". You've got your douchebag protagonist (Over the Hedge) that participates in a colony (A Bug's Life) ruled by this threatening villain who big shock turns out to be the bad guy (A Bug's Life)... I think I made my point clear. Also the tone of the movie is really mean-spirited. All of the characters are either idiots, comic reliefs, or jerks. You know except for that female squirrel whose name I have forgot like the rest of the characters.And if your story isn't written very well, it only figures the humor might suffer. And it suffers indeed, completed with all your favorite fart jokes, burp jokes, pee jokes and with comic reliefs of which you will forget about soon as you leave the theater! How wonderful, right? RIGHT?In conclusion, this movie is your poor man's Over the Hedge. And even Over the Hedge wasn't that great to begin with (sorry OtH fans) so you basically have this shitty, uninspired and most of all mean- spirited movie. If the sequel is any good (which I HIGHLY doubt) I might go see it online but for now, I'm done with the Nut Job franchise.

In an Oakton city park opposite the bank, Surly the Squirrel (Will Arnett) is an outcast with his rat partner Buddy often stealing nuts from everybody. Raccoon (Liam Neeson) is the manipulating leader of the park and he finds the nut storage at a low. He sends out squirrels Andie (Katherine Heigl) and Grayson (Brendan Fraser) to take from a newly arrived nut vendor cart. Surly refuses to cooperate. The cart vendor turns out to be the lookout for a bank robbery. The stolen cart is launched into the tree burning it down. Surly is banished from the park.Animation has advanced so far that this is really only good for a TV movie on one of those kids channels. The animation is kind of grimy at times but it's good enough for TV. Surly is a rogue character. His sidekick Buddy needs to have a comedic voice. In order to create better group chemistry, he needs to invite Andie to join him in the caper. Also they already broke into the place before which makes breaking in again and again not as interesting. The caper isn't quite as fun as it should be. The start is fine but it gets repetitive. It just gets tiresome and the short running time feels over-extended.

The Nut Job is a family friendly animated comedy featuring a cast of furry critters engaged in a caper to get food for the winter. While the animation is decent and featuring a star-studded cast, the film ultimately feels lackluster and lifeless. It's hard to pin down where the problems begin as it has cracks running down to its very foundation. The entire flick feels disjointed with one scene bleeding into the next. The characters lack motivation and arbitrarily switch alignments for little more reason than for the plot's convenience. The jokes just don't hit with many of them being random farts and burps that seem to have been added in editing. And of course, the entire story hinges on tropes without any details for added depth. The villain is evil just to be evil. The main character is selfish just to have redemption at the end. The love interest is interested in the main character for no more reason than to be a love interest. It's all very uninspired.The animation is serviceable with an incredible amount of detail on every model, but the character designs themselves are inconsistent and incredibly unoriginal. Many of the characters look ripped straight from other more successful CG animated films. The squirrels look like modified versions of Hammy from Over the Hedge. The rats look like modified Remmys from Ratatouille. I'm not even being hyperbolic, they literally look like stolen assets. And while the characters move and express well enough, the sparse backgrounds and lack of camera movements pervade an air of lifelessness. Many would argue that none of this matters because it's just for kids. I disagree. Kids deserve better than this. The Nut Job is no more than a soulless and flat imitation of a Dreamworks animated film. Skip it.

Obviously if you compare this with Pixar, this will seem like a very disappointing outing. But this is a different weight class to get into boxing "lingo" and it would be unfair to this movie to be in the same ring with those movies. This is just a nice little well animated and executed picture, that goes places.For some the fact that our main protagonist is not the most likable and may seem to do all the wrong things, might be annoying. Some might thing not redeemable when watching this. But there has to be some development and our (unlikely) "hero" has to learn things (the hard way). There are a couple of things, that don't seem to fit, but overall the impression is that the story works. Voice casting was good (with Liam Neeson having obviously a lot of fun) and if you can overlook a few flaws and the fact that this is not as clean cut as other animated kids movies (the nut puns alone throughout the movie, will either annoy or delight you), you will have fun with this