Manou the Swift

Virtually laugh-free, so-so looking with a seriously drippy musical number, it feels like a film slipped into cinemas over summer to sucker parents desperate to do something, anything, to fill a couple of hours.

Orphaned bird looks for his true home; scares and suspense.

Swift has its heart in the right place, I suppose, but, unlike its main character, it never quite manages to spread its wings and fly.

The plot lurches through a series of haphazard sequences that feel like the filmmakers going through a checklist of elements from successful animated movies.

Swift is cheap on multiple levels.

[A]s is increasingly the case with CGI features, the plot and its message are frequently sidelined by game-inspired action sequences whose swooping speed is designed to counter short attention spans.

Small children should dig its simple, well-crafted coming-of-age story, set in the world of our feathered friends.