Guardian of the Highlands

Were there reasons in the first place to see Sir Billi? Yes, that it was Sean Connery's comeback, that there are some talented actors on board and that it was billed to be the first animated film to be done entirely in Scotland. Avid fans of the animation medium would find a further reason to see it. It's a shame that such a great and charismatic actor like would comeback with a film that is a contender for the worst film of his career, certainly the worst animated film of 2013 and the worst I've seen in a while.

The only redeeming qualities are the striking Bond-style opening sequence and Dame Shirley Bassey's singing, nice song and she sounds great. You'd think that Connery would elevate things as well, sadly while it was nice to hear him and his distinctive voice his talent is wasted by being given little to do, it makes one wonder what made him break his retirement in the first place. The rest of the cast aren't much better, they lack energy and some of the accents are cringe-worthy.

And there's no better news with the animation, which is really quite bad. The characters are very plastic-looking and the colours are garish. It often looks very freaky-looking as well. The music is not bad-sounding but is not used well, like some lines it can be out of place, and the Bond references were completely pointless, adding absolutely nothing to the story. Were they paying homage to Connery by any chance?

Sir Billi is a very poorly-written film too. The dialogue as a whole is uninspired and unremarkable, ruined further by that it seems to have no idea who it's aiming at. There is a lot of smut and innuendo which will go over kids' heads, if they were trying to widen the target audience they failed at that. Even worse is that not only is the use of it overkill but even adults won't find it funny at all and will find it distasteful instead. The story is dull and incoherent, and filled with too many characters that serve little if anything to the telling of it. Regarding the characters here too, if you are trying to find any to root for, good luck, that certainly didn't happen with me(you might think differently though).

Overall, from a personal subjective opinion Sir Billi was dire with very little good about it. Considering the potential it had it was really disappointing too, Planes and Justin and the Knights of Valour were underwhelming films with some potential, but Sir Billi's potential was even bigger(being Sean Connery's comeback and claiming to be the first animated film from Scotland) and fell flat on its face even harder. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Firstly, the character design in this film is abysmal; every character is hard to look at it. Secondly, the whole concept is quite strange, and frankly pretty sinister - animals and humans live side-by-side and can talk with each other, yet cows are still milked, certain animals are threatened with extermination, etc... Beyond that the whole thing is very strange, the main character is apparently a retired vet, but also has been knighted? There's a policeman obsessed with catching a beaver? There's a duck who flies a plane?

The storyline veers from repititce and predictable to bizarre and inexplicable, and the jokes and stereotypes feel dated at best, and for a kids film, there are some weirdly sexual, and quite frankly offensively sexist moments with female characters.

I don't know who funded this but I feel bad for them.

Avoid.

Rest In Peace Sean Connery you deserved a much better end to your career then this movie. May your legacy not be defined by this movie but by your amazing work In other films 😔

I created an account just to review this. I am convinced that I died pressing play on this movie and the whole thing was the hell that awaited me in the afterlife. I have no clue why some people painfully subject themselves to this. This movie has a non-sensical plot, boring characters and absolutely horrendous visuals. I'm convinced that 70% of the budget was on Sean Connery, 1% for the animation and 29% crack for the production team. 0/10 would not recommend.

I cannot believe the too high rating of this movie now. My only guess is, all the people who worked on it, and all their families are up-voting it daily. I only learned of it existing now, because it has been rightfully forgotten otherwise since its 2012 release. I had to check the company's website twice to actually confirm that Sir Sean Connery not only acted in this, but was the producer! My only guess is, this being the first Scottish animated movie, he wanted to support his homeland. He should have checked whom he gave his money...

In short,the animation is so ugly with such horrifying character models that I actually felt sick just by watching these... "humans" walk around and talk. The men all have weird pear-shaped heads, while what goes for women look like chimpanzee-faced trolls with exaggerated butts and boobs, and you don't want to see them do a sexy dance... yet that's what they do right in the horrible James Bond ripoff opening. Animals don't look any better, most of them have the exact same model, so a beaver looks the same as a rabbit, just without the ears and with a beaver tail.

The story, if you can call it that, is that two policemen steal a truckload of beavers... for some reason. In a world where animals can talk with humans and wear clothes... is that slavery and kidnapping? And as one beaver kid escapes and is raised by rabbits, the corrupt London cop for some reason makes it his life's mission to hunt him down. Then we cut to our "hero", Scottish noble Sir Billi who is a skateboard-riding grandpa vet and has a pet talking goat called Gordy hanging around with him, who constantly dresses like Uma Thurman from Kill Bill. Confused yet? Good! It does not get any better, with stupid rabbit games of sliding down hills tied to giant logs that naturally cause the beaver and some rabbits to almost die in the river, some American goons and a local Scottish corrupt noble showing up, a Russian sub emerging from the sea, and the most "important plot" of Sir Billi wanting to get into the pants of the "sexy" American sister of the local chimpanzee-woman.

This was expanded from a 2006 short into a full 1 hour 40 minutes movie, and it shows, because barely anything happens in it. It has a surprising amount of VA and singer talent attached to it, I can only guess out of love for their homeland or pity, but this should have never been made. It looks like "A Car's Life" or "What's Up" or any of the other terrible Disney-ripoff dime a dozen cash-ins, and Sean Connery should have considered what he agreed to fund and star in. I don't recommend watching this, except maybe to riff it.