The Willoughbys is a Netflix Original animated movie that is brought to by Kris Pearn who did the fantastic, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. This is a family movie that is funny, but it is also pretty dark in terms of what the story is dealing with. The animation in the movie is incredible and it has a rather unique look to it all that really does grab your attention.
How to Download The Willoughbys
You can download or stream the film from Netflix using the Netflix App. Click on the Download button at the end of this review.
The Movie Review
The Willoughbys are a family of six. There is the mom and dad who have four kids, Tim, Jane, and twins Barnaby… both of them are called this! To the outside world, The Willoughbys are a good and loving family who appear to have it all, but that is not what this family is really like.
The parents never wanted kids and they are pretty much abusive to the children, ignoring, starving them, and just not being loving at all. Things are made even worse when a baby is dropped off on their doorstep and Tim brings the baby into the house! This makes the parents furious and they demand that they get rid of the baby and tell the kids not to come back until they do.
They drop the baby off at the candy factory where the lovely man, commander Melanof takes it in. However, on the way home, Tim hatches a plan to get rid of their parents by sending them on a deadly vacation! This way the kids can orphan themselves and get taken in by a family that will treat them right.
Well, things do not go according to plan. The kids manage to send the parents on vacation and they are looked after by a nanny called, Linda. Linda is much more loving and kinder to the kids and three of them love it, but Tim is less trusting and tries to get rid of her due to a misunderstanding.
The Willoughbys is a story that is fun and at the end of the day all about family and what it means to be a family. What I think the movie does really well is that it shows family is more than just blood and it can be a nice message for kids to hear and see that families can come in all shapes and sizes.
However, while I think that aspect of the story is great, I do feel that if some kids watching this perhaps have had some trouble with their family, it may be a bit of a hard watch. The movie has a very bright and colorful style to it which does help perhaps tone down some of the darker themes that the story has.
As well as being a good movie to look at, The Willoughbys has a great voice cast too. Ricky Gervais plays the role of a cat who narrates the movie which is fun. We also have the likes of Will Forte, Maya Rudolph Terry Crews, and the always awesome, Martin Short. It truly is a great cast and they do a wonderful job bringing the movie to life.
I think that The Willoughbys is a good animated movie. I like how there is humor here and that the animation is great, however, the story has more depth to it than what many other animated movies offer. As I said, this does have some darker themes running in the story so that may be something to consider before you put it on for your kids.
