Buffalo Kids review – CGI old west adventure with a big, warm heart

This is the family-friendly animated story of Tom and Mary, a pair of parentless 19th-century mites making the journey from Ireland to California in search of their uncle, who they hope will adopt them. Along the way they fall in with a tiny puppy and a boy named Nick who uses a wheelchair, and this gang proceed to have various wholesome adventures before the happy ending, which ties everything up neatly at the hour and a half mark.

Some family films – while not reaching the god-tier of Wallace and Gromit or Paddington – are perfectly decent entertainments for their intended audience, no more no less. It is into this category that we can slot Buffalo Kids. It’s amiable and rattles along nicely enough without ever really surprising anyone. It is seamlessly dubbed into English from the Spanish original, and while the CGI character design isn’t particularly charming, there are some nice old-west backdrops and scenery on offer.

The most distinctive thing about it is the inclusion of a disabled lead character: still a rarity when the story is not explicitly about that disability, and even more so in lighthearted family animations. Not that Nick’s disability is glossed over or painted as a quirk – he is paralysed and cannot talk, and there are several sequences in which Tom and Mary are shown making adjustments to accommodate him. And naturally he’s instrumental in saving the day at the end.

Buffalo Kids is not the kind of film that will become a cultural phenomenon à la Frozen, but it is engaging enough, with its warm heart firmly in the right place.

• Buffalo Kids is in UK and Irish cinemas from 11 October.