As the final credits for this movie rolled, a little boy at the Dendy screening exclaimed, "That's the best movie I've ever seen!"

According to his grandparents, he's five, so that's understandable. His three-year-old sister liked it, too.

And it's not hard to see why. The Mexican animated film from Huevocartoon Producciones (screening in an English-language version) has bright colours, good animation, lots of slapstick, fart jokes, adventurous youngsters, caring parents and a quest story.

These are all elements that appeal to kids, and at least some adults, who are also catered to with some verbal and visual jokes that will go over most children's heads.

It's certainly mildly diverting with its often wacky characters and incidents and story turns.

Little Eggs: An African Rescue is a bit like being with someone who's nice and friendly, occasionally funny, and eager to please but who's also loud and a little irritating.

And the pacing by directors Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste and Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste is uneven - the film is often a little ponderous.

Given this is an English dub (by actors I didn't recognise), it's impossible to know how much has been changed. Maybe something was lost in translation.

The film too often feels forced and shrill and emotionally shallow, with little sense of danger or emotional engagement.

There are lots of characters but while a few are given a bit of personality - like the egotistical eagle egg - there are simply too many, so few of them make an impact.

Finding Nemo this is not.

The story begins on a small farm where Toto, the head rooster, is the anxious father of two new Little Eggs, Uly and Max.

Apparently in this world the unhatched chicks are sentient within the shell from which their faces and limbs protude. Like many kids, they want to go out and do things, but he's concerned about the dangers of the outside world.

It turns out Toto is right.

The eggs' golden hue wins them a prize at a contest and this draws the attention of a nasty Russian woman and her underlings.

She's amassing a collection of eggs - snake, eagle, iguana, you name it - to take to Africa for the delectation of a billionaire and his wealthy friends at a feast of exotic foods.

Why chicken eggs would not have been first on the list to acquire we can only wonder, but soon enough the eggs are on a plane and Toto, his wife and their friends - who in one of the oddball touches, include an ambulant strip of pork belly named Francis Bacon - must go to the rescue.

It's a long journey with many unexpected adventures along the way - being trapped in a freezer, hungry crocodiles, helpful hippos, and being forced to take part in a talent show on which the chief judge is a lion.

Maybe there's a lesson about comedy here: an unintentional slapstick routine - including, yes, falling on a banana peel - wins the crowd over.

Some of the scenes and sequences that occur are fun and fit in well but others feel like they're padding the running time and getting in the way of the story.

Both the freezer scene and the talent show sequence go on too long but at least the latter pays off in the end.

Those young siblings I mentioned at the start won't be reading this, but there are and will continue to be many more movies for them to watch.

It's wonderful these kids are enjoying movies so young - and behaving well in the cinema, something many adults don't do.

They could certainly have done worse than see this but I have no doubt they will soon find other films that will be better.