^{Credit: Swapped (Netflix, Skydance Animation)}

With John Lasseter in a leadership position, it seemed inevitable that Skydance Animation would draw comparisons to the films he oversaw at Disney and Pixar. With their first two features, Skydance has struggled to find an identity, coming off as a pale imitation of Lasseter’s old stomping grounds. Luck was essential Diet Pixar, right down to the John Ratzenberger cameo. Spellbound desperately wanted to be a Disney musical, even recruiting Alan Menken. Lasseter might’ve brought some of the same talent with him, but little of the magic in those cases. To its credit, Swapped is the best animated film that Skydance has produced so far. I dare even say that overall, Swapped works well enough… even if Skydance still isn’t breaking ground per se.

Swapped calls a few Disney/Pixar movies to mind, including Brother Bear, Freaky Friday, and Hoppers from earlier this year. It also has a Disney alumnus in the director’s seat: Nathan Greno of Tangled. That said, Tangled remains one of Disney’s most beautifully crafted films. It isn’t surprising that Swapped is from the one-half of that film’s directing duo. Swapped immediately immerses us in a gorgeous natural landscape, already showing a drastic improvement over Skydance’s previous efforts. Where the animation in Luck and Spellbound had a plastic aesthetic, Skydance significantly ups their game here in terms of lighting, shadows, textures, and scale.

The film is at its best when it lets the visuals and Siddhartha Khosla’s elegant musical score do the talking. Of course, there are talking animals in Swapped, but the film takes the trope in a unique direction. In virtually every talking animal movie ever made, the animals can all understand each other. In Swapped, animals can only understand other members of their own species, which weirdly makes sense. It also plays into the film’s theme of prejudice as a Pookoo named Ollie (Michael B. Jordan) clashes with a Kākāpō named Ivy (Juno Temple). What’s a Pookoo and a Kākāpō? One’s a sea otter-like chipmunk and the other’s a bird. The bottom line, they're natural enemies, or so they’ve been raised to believe.

When they interact with a magical pod, Ollie turns into a Kākāpō while Ivy becomes a Pookoo. Both also find that they can understand each other (and other animals). To swap back to their original bodies, Ollie and Ivy must trek through a mystical valley. While they receive help from a fish named Boogle (Tracy Morgan), virtually everything else wants to eat them. Maybe, just maybe, though, Ollie and Ivy will learn that we need each other to survive. Yeah, the message isn’t anything we haven’t seen in other animated films like The Wild Robot. Even so, Swapped gets it across with just enough charm, sincerity, and nuance.

Jordan and Temple turn in committed voice performances, although Ollie and Ivy’s bickering in the first half can get grating. In general, the dialogue isn’t the film’s strong suit. It’s an improvement over Spellbound, which constantly forced in modern lingo and pop culture references. Outside of a few slapstick gags, though, the humor in Swapped doesn’t always land. Fortunately, the film isn’t trying to make us laugh every second. It does take time to let moments sink in with nobody talking.

The story is unexpectedly engaging as well, despite a convoluted mythology and sense of familiarity. Again, we’ve seen this setup before, but the film manages to shake things up a bit. Let’s just say that there’s one twist that everybody should be able to predict, but another that does come as a genuine shock. I’m still not sure if this curveball is clever or Secret of NIMH 2 levels of "really?" By the time we got to the climax, though, I was surprised to find just how invested I was, even if the journey could be rocky at times. With another rewrite or two, Swapped might’ve been a darn good family film, although given Skydance’s past track record, I’ll gladly settle for solid.

It’s hard to say what the future holds for Skydance. The lukewarm reception towards Luck and Spellbound aside, the misconduct allegations John Lasseter faced upon leaving Disney got the studio off on a negative note. For the record, we still shouldn’t turn a blind eye to those accusations. Even so, Swapped is a step in the right direction for Skydance. Time will only tell if Skydance can ever produce a film on par with the Disney classics they’re chasing. After Swapped, however, I am more optimistic about Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn, which Skydance has coming out later this year.

Nick Spake is the Author of Bright & Shiny: A History of Animation at Award Shows Volumes 1, 2, and 3. Available Now!