This ploddingly mediocre knockoff about a boy with a monstrous genetic secret is visually uninspired and not much to listen to

However discontented we all might conceivably be with the current state of Hollywood animation, and various iffy threequels for Cars and Despicable Me, it’s still dispiriting to encounter this ploddingly mediocre knockoff, with its budget effects, utterly uninspired visual design and flatlining dialogue.

A lonely kid at school is getting bullied and his overprotective dad won’t let him go anywhere without his inhaler. But the reason is that overexcitement could bring on, not an asthmatic attack, but an awful metamorphosis. The boy’s genetic secret is that he is a monster, like his dad. So he will have to journey to his mythic homeland, Monster Island, to confront his destiny.

The whole forgettable movie looks as if it has been generated by ageing software.