Ferdinand

When the now-beloved children’s book The Story of Ferdinand was first published in 1936, some grownups were worried that it might have a bad influence on children. Apparently its sweet, simple story, from writer Munro Leaf, with instantly iconic illustrations by Robert Lawson, was seen as promoting pacifism, fascism, communism and/or anarchism. To be fair, the tale of a bull in Spain who wasn’t interested in bullfighting and only wanted to loll about in fields of flowers could certainly be taken as pacifist. Maybe it wasn’t even unreasonable to see Ferdinand as an anarchic hero: If bulls (or people) suddenly got it into their heads that they could just do what they wanted, contrary to whatever their “rightful” place in the world was, well, anarchy.

I wish those handwringers could see Blue Sky’s new big-screen take on Ferdinand, because they’d freak out. Ferdinand moves way beyond the standard cartoon-movie message of “be yourself” and into a realm that overtly criticizes cultural expectations as tyrannical. Ferdinand celebrates an odd outsider not merely for his own sake but for how his defiance of convention highlights just how dangerous conventions can be.

Casting WWE “wrestler” John Cena as the voice of Ferdinand was a stroke of genius, not least because Cena has been making a bit of a mark for himself in live-action comedies as an unexpectedly sensitive soul in a big scary body.

There’s plenty that’s downright goofy here – this is a movie for children, after all – but there’s never anything “funny” in Ferdinand’s gentleness, or lack of interest in knocking heads with the other bulls. (There is a literal bull-in-a-china-shop sequence, which plays beautifully in a kiddie comedy.)

The source material has been expanded to fill a feature-length film, but the core story remains the same. Ferdinand has no desire for the arena, and longs to frolic in fields of wildflowers. New storylines come in a runaway Ferdinand’s soujourn on a flower farm with a girl called Nina (the voice of Lily Day), who treats him like a pet, and her dog, Paco (Jerrod Carmichael), whom Ferdinand calls a brother. “A dog and a bull can’t be brothers,” Paco insists. “That would be weird.”

Ferdinand isn’t only a pro-smelling-flowers story, it’s very much an anti-bullfighting one. It’s the first movie for kids I’m aware of that directly confronts the idea of toxic masculinity, the gendered expectations that boys be strong and fierce, avoid expressing soft emotion.

FERDINAND ( * * * 1/2) • Directed by Carlos Saldanha • Starring John Cena, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Cannavale • Rated PG • 106 min. • At Century Cinemas Del Monte, Maya Cinemas, Northridge Cinemas