The French animated film “Pets on a Train,” or “Falcon Express,” directed by Benoît Daffis and Jean-Christian Tassy, officially hit American theaters on Oct. 17.
Despite the film’s initial release in France on July 2, it is set during the Christmas season.
The film begins with a day in the life of a raccoon named Falcon (played by Damien Ferrette) that has to steal food from either humans or the trash can in order to provide for himself and his friends. These friends include other stray or undomesticated animals such as dogs, cats, pigeons and rats.
As Falcon returns with all the food he collected, he lets his friends know that this Christmas they will have enough for a three-course meal, seeing as he has plans to steal food from a train; however, he does not plan to do this alone.
With the help of a badger named Hans (Frantz Confiac), Falcon successfully boards the train and hacks into the train’s cars, allowing Hans to access them remotely.
While Falcon sneaks from car to car, various pets are loaded onto the train. These pets include a cat named Maguy (Kaycie Chase), a German shepherd police dog named Rex (Hervé Jolly), an anaconda named Anna (Eleanor Noble), two parrots, two rabbits, another cat, a hamster, a turtle, a clownfish, a duck, a greyhound and a chihuahua.
Unfortunately, this heist did not go as planned. Now with remote access to the train, Hans was able to play an audio instructing all humans to unboard.
With only the pets on the train now, Hans sets it into motion and reveals his plan to cause the train to crash into a nearby city as revenge against Rex, who was responsible for sending Hans to the pound five years earlier.
With a little bit of teamwork and a whole lot of trust, Falcon and the pets on the train were able to successfully stop it just in time.
In addition to the excessively large cast list, many viewers noted the fast-paced nature of this children’s film. Though it can be argued that adult critics are simply not the target audience for this film, “Pets on a Train” heavily references “Die Hard” (1988), even going as far as to name the main villain the same name and releasing it as a Christmas movie despite being out of season, insinuating the creators recognized the potential adult audiences.
The biggest problem with “Pets on a Train” is that it fails to teach a lesson or tackle any given issue. Other animated children’s films like “Bad Guys 2” (2025) and “Zootopia” (2016) address greater issues, like the difficulties of job hunting as an ex-convict and the problems with prejudices and stereotyping. “Pets on a Train” fails to properly address the issues of classism and food insecurity that its plot had the potential to address.
“Bad Guys 2” also shows the characters facing consequences and learning from their past mistakes. “Pets on a Train” entirely glosses over the danger all of the characters were in and ends with Falcon talking about another job and hijacking an airplane to continue stealing food, showing he never learned his lesson.
As an adult, it is important to watch children’s movies and TV shows. Not only do these forms of media improve critical thinking skills, but they also give adult audiences an opportunity to examine the content their children will be consuming.
How can we possibly advocate for better media for our youth if we are not regularly consuming that content ourselves?
“Pets on a Train” is just another result of poorly criticized children’s media. With young audiences unable to discern quality from mediocrity, adult audiences have the responsibility to critique children’s films in the same way they critique any other film.
