The Nut Job

In a city park, a maverick squirrel (voiced by Will Arnett) hatches a plot to rob a nut store—the same store that some humans are using as a front to rob a neighboring bank. Written by Daniel Woo, Lorne Cameron and director Peter Lepeniotis, this animated feature combines a dull, needlessly complicated story, uninteresting characters both human and animal (despite the presence of such voices as Katherine Heigl, Brendan Fraser, Liam Neeson, Maya Rudolph, Stephen Lang and others), lame sight gags and even lamer puns. It all adds up to a crashing bore, without a single frame worth watching. As if to confirm the basic problem with many animated features today—that they feel like over-extended cartoon shorts—this one was actually expanded (“distended” would be a better word) from an 11-minute short.