It’s a quirk of our society that having and raising children is a revered, celebrated activity, but that society no longer has any use for children who are childish.

It’s a quirk of our society that having and raising children is a revered, celebrated activity, but that society no longer has any use for children who are childish.

Every cultural force is pushing for them to grow up as quickly as possible. Storks, a children’s animation that doesn’t seem to have any real feel for entertaining children, may be the apotheosis of this.

The premise is that storks have abandoned baby delivery and have monetised their service to become an anthropomorphic version of Amazon, called Cornerstore.com.

But then a child, whose estate agent parents (Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell) can’t find five minutes to play with him, requests a baby brother and reactivates the dormant baby delivery service which ends up with a stork called Junior (Andy Samberg) and an orphan girl (Katie Crown) who works there – don’t ask, it’s not worth explaining – having to secretly deliver the baby without the boss (Kelsey Grammer) noticing.

Now, does any part of that synpopis suggest charm or enchantment to you?

I hated this film, but it seems most people found it bearable or enjoyable.

It does have two or three inspired bits of visual humour and one or two really funny lines, but overall the performances are too frantic and the rhythms of the central Samberg/Crown double act’s delivery are too adult.

The whole thing moves at such a speed it is as if they are trying to put as much distance between themselves and the premise as possible.

Storks comes to us from the Warners Animation Group and is trying to repeat the adult savvy style that made the Lego Movie such a success but here the formula feels smug and aloof.