Neglected by their parents, four old-fashioned siblings venture out into the modern world with their new nanny.

The agreeable animated adventure “The Willoughbys,” now streaming on Netflix, opens with the cheeky voice of Ricky Gervais. He plays a rascally striped feline who, in the first of many allusions to classic children’s texts, evokes the Cheshire cat from “Alice in Wonderland.”

 Narrating the story, the cat introduces us to the stately Willoughby home, where four gifted children — Tim (Will Forte), Jane (Alessia Cara) and twins both named Barnaby (Seán Cullen) — conspire to rid themselves of their comically callous and neglectful parents (Jane Krakowski and Martin Short).

This delightfully macabre premise was first cooked up in a book by Lois Lowry, who sought to satirize the gothic fantasy genre by perverting key themes: wicked parents, lonely children, eccentric benefactors.

But in adapting the book, the director Kris Pearn, who co-wrote the script with Mark Stanleigh, bungles some of Lowry’s cleverness. Various fun and surprising scenarios — a booby-trapped estate sale, a jailbreak in an oatmeal cart — are muddled by messy, zippy pivots. Worse, the darkness of the original tale is diluted by a sweetened visual design dripping with rainbows.

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family

Release Date: Apr 22, 2020

Stars: Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Alessia Cara

Source: The.Willoughbys.2020.1080p.NF.WEBRip.DDP5.1.Atmos.x264-NTG

Language: English

Subtitle Language: English

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5206260/

⇒ The Willoughbys (2020) English Animation MP4

⇒ The Willoughbys (2020) English Subtitled