STOP me if you've heard this one before: a computer-animated family film in which animals from a New York zoo embark on a journey into the outside world.

That's right, the latest Disney offering bears more than a passing resemblance to last year's Madagascar. Critically, there's not much to choose between the two.

It depends on how cute and/or bizarre you find the choice of animals. The best one in The Wild is Izzard's kooky koala, who has the best laughs as he gets shipped off to Africa.

The journey with his fellow zoo inmates - a lion, giraffe, snake and squirrel - comes about as Samson the lion (voiced by 24 star Sutherland) sets out to rescue his cub son Ryan, who's got himself locked in a crate and shipped abroad. The rescue party is eventually washed up on a volcanic island, where an eruption is imminent and where these city animals must fend for themselves in the wild. The main threat comes from the king of the wildebeests Kazar (Star Trek's Shatner).

He wants to upset the natural order by knocking lions off the top of the food chain chart. The Wild ambles along without any massive laughs or thrills. It's all a bit dull. The animation is realistic enough, but I longed for more invention and more humour to move things along.

Voices: Kiefer Sutherland, James Belushi, Eddie Izzard, Janeane Garofalo, William Shatner
Running Time: 81 mins
Rating: Three Stars