It’s an extremely rare occurrence that, no matter how bad a film may be, it makes me feel like I want to leave the cinema. It’s even rarer that a film actually physically offends me. Andy Serkis’ adaptation of Animal Farm manages both. It’s one of, if not the worst film of the year so far, despite its star studded voice cast.

George Orwell’s landmark novella is renowned for its darkness and its metaphor for the Stalinist betrayal of the Russian Revolution. It’s subject matter that, particularly in this day and age, should be treated with maturity and handled with care, while still holding pertinent lessons for all ages. However, this “version” of Animal Farm, scripted by Nicholas Stoller, is an abhorrent mess. It aims to poke fun at American corporate greed amongst endless fart and pee jokes that quickly become unbearable.

It was always going to be an uphill struggle to adapt such chilling literature into an animated kids film while conveying the message in the right way. But perhaps the biggest sin Andy Serkis’ Animal Farm commits is shying away from the unhappy nature of what it’s based on. The Hollywood glamorisation of the ending doesn’t help, nor does the painfully cringey romance that’s been forced in. Napoleon (Seth Rogen) is supposed to be an insidious dictator but instead feels like a damp squib. Snowball (Laverne Cox), who should be key to both the script and the overall darkness, is inexplicably written out in the first act.

The changes that have been made are disastrous, completely stripping away the original story’s meaning and replacing it with generic slop. It doesn’t even have the nerve to trust its audience’s intelligence, instead hand holding them through every step with some outrageously bad dialogue. It’s almost as if Andy Serkis and Nicholas Stoller completely forgot who this was for, whether kids or adults, and end up doing neither. Instead, they have created something boring, uninspiring, and painfully meek in its criticism of modern culture.

The voice cast, made up of names like Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Woody Harrelson, and Glenn Close to name a few, is clearly the film’s main selling point and are largely blameless in this mess. Each commits to their role in what will likely be a career lowlight for many. For Rogen at least, his voice becomes incredibly grating as Napoleon unravels into one of the most lifeless characters imaginable.

The animation is just about the only redeeming factor. The animals in particular look fairly good, which might capture the attention of younger viewers early on. Even then, compare it to something like Swapped, released on Netflix the same weekend, and it’s night and day between the two, with one being flawless and the other just passable.

It was always going to be difficult for a modern adaptation of Animal Farm to be worse than the literal state funded one in 1954, but Andy Serkis and Nicholas Stoller have managed that with ease. There’s a strong argument that this is one of the worst adaptations of all time, completely misunderstanding the source material it claims to be based on. Much like the toilet humour it insists on cramming down the audience’s throat, Animal Farm is a load of shit.