'The Nut Job 2' serves up stale jokes, slapstick

The animated film "The Nut Job" and its new sequel, like many a movie before them with the theme of man vs. nature, depicts a world in which grotesque humans are ultimately rendered powerless by animals (in this case, those of the cute, talking variety).

The saga picks up some time after the first film left off, with Surly the purple squirrel (voice of Will Arnett) and his friends having become complacent after gaining free rein over an abandoned nut shop. Meanwhile, across the street from this site of feral bacchanalia, an industrious squirrel named Andie (Katherine Heigl) struggles to teach her children to work for their food.

The parable of rodent work ethics only goes so far when an explosion in the boiler room destroys the nut shop, leaving the animals to fend for themselves in a nearby park. But even that food source is threatened when the town's mayor (Bobby Moynihan) decides to replace the nature preserve with a moneymaking amusement park.

If the well-worn premise of this furry David-and-Goliath tale had any potential, it's undermined by a screenplay (by director Cal Brunker and Bob Barlen) that over-explains every one of Surly's stale jokes and pratfalls, making them even less funny than they already are.

"Nutty by Nature" comes to life, however briefly, when a mouse named Mr. Feng (Jackie Chan) appears, commanding an army of vermin. If the producers had any sense, they would have handed the movie over to him.