Sahara (2017)

Given that most humans can't cohabit in the desert, it's hardly surprising that snakes can't either! "Ajar" is a young poisonous one who lives amidst the arid conditions and who has to avoid the ridicule of his compatriots as he has yet to shed his first skin and the peckish tribesmen who would love nothing better than to roast him over an open fire. Meantime, in the relative luxury of the oasis the princess "Eva" is fed up being manipulated, and so when an arranged marriage is presented to her she vows to escape. That's when she encounters the dashing young "Ajar" and despite some initial reservations, they begin to become friends. Fate has other plans for the pair, though, as the local Tuareg manage to catch her and so he and his best pal "Pitt" the scorpion have to race to her rescue before there is nothing left to save. I don't know if this really bears too favourable a comparison with the bigger budgeted content from planets Disney and Pixar editorially, but the standard of the animation is really quite good and plenty of effort has been spent on crafting the look of characters, the colouring and the shading - and that works quite well to present us with it's dry and hot location. The story? Well that's a bit more all over the place and it seems to borrow rather inconsistently from contemporaneous references from elsewhere that don't always work - especially if you're older, but there's still some enjoyable mischief to be had and who doesn't like a cartoon scorpion? This isn't a film you will recall for long, but to be honest that could be said of a great many formulaic animated adventures - and this is certainly no worse than many.