My hackles immediately go up at any film which opens with a “yeah, that’s me, I bet you’re wondering how I got here”-style voiceover, and Swapped – which trafficks in a similar kind of flash-forward – never really recovers from rote familiarity at nearly every turn. Director Nathan Greno, and screenwriters Christian Magalhaes, Robert Snow, and John Whittington, show some originality through the creative character designs, but the film mostly feels emblematic of what’s plagued Netflix original films and modern animation overall.

One of those problematic trends concerns studios – in this case, Skydance Animation, in its new partnership with Netflix – casting bankable celebrities to round out its voice cast, rather than considering who would best be able to inhabit the characters. Michael B. Jordan, fresh off his first Oscar win, leads the voice cast of Swapped as Ollie, a “Pookoo”, which looks like a chipmunk with thicker legs. Jordan does a fine enough job expressing Ollie’s emotions, but his voice just feels wrong coming from the mouth of any of these creatures. A generous reading could justify Jordan’s casting as fitting within the film’s narrative about secluded communities working past their differences to come together, but I’ll apply Occam’s Razor and assume that Skydance had the cash to burn and Jordan was available.

At least the proper resources were dedicated to developing an eye-catching look for each of the animals we see throughout the film. Some of the best moments come when Ollie is simply showing his determination and exploring the world around him. In these sequences, we see all manner of creatures and their adaptations which help them to blend in with the environment. Fish can be camouflaged as leaves. Wolves have branches and colorful leaves on their backs. Giraffe/deer creatures are pigmented to look like birch trees, and bears have moss covering their backs so they can more easily hunt for fish.

As we hear the aforementioned opening narration, Ollie is telling us about the worst day of his life, which resulted from his inherent curiosity. The Pookoo live a prosperous, but isolated, life on a small island in the middle of a valley, and that prosperity is interrupted once a young Ollie introduces a wandering Javan – a green bird with distinctive feathers on their head – to their food supply. This goes against the Pookoo way (“Hide today, alive tomorrow” is their motto), and the teachings of Ollie’s parents (Cedric the Entertainer and Justina Machado). Before he knows it, the Javan has brought the rest of its flock along and the Pookoo are on the verge of starvation, forced to live underground for fear of being eaten themselves. This leads his grandmother (Tata Vega) to inform Ollie of the Dzo, giant tree/elephant creatures with the ability to dispense magical pods which transform a creature into another creature.

Swapped gets its title once Ollie accidentally becomes a Javan, and is forced to enlist Ivy (Juno Temple), the very same Javan whom Ollie introduced to their food supply. As you can probably expect, the two don’t trust each other or are very willing to help one another, but it changes once Ivy is similarly changed into a Pookoo. They learn from Boogle (Tracy Morgan), a colorful fish, that more pods await farther away, and the two set off to find them. If anyone amongst the voice cast impresses within Swapped, it’s Morgan, whose naturally lively and expressive voice fits the goofy, empty-headed character.

Even if this year didn’t already produce an animated (and, frankly, far superior) animal body-swap film in Hoppers, Swapped would still feel derivative, as almost every plot and character beat and action sequence feels telegraphed from the beginning. Yes, Ollie and Ivy have to overcome their predilections and prejudices, and convince their peers to do the same, for the greater good of the animal world once a greater evil presents itself.

Skydance got its start in the hopes that it could challenge Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks as the next great animation studio – not to mention its head of animation John Lasseter needed a new home after being ousted from Pixar. Their first feature, Luck was a tired, confusing mess and one of the worst films of the year, but scored a few measly points for its creative designs. And while Swapped doesn’t feel as laborious to sit through, it still feels like a hollow interpretation of better films in the body-swap genre.

Swapped is now available to stream on Netflix.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

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