2025’s Pets on a Train – A Christmas Heist Disaster Movie That Forgets Its Christmas

Film Title: “Pets on a Train” (US/UK) / Falcon Express (France)
Cast: VDamien Ferrette, Hervé Jolly, Kaycie Chase, Frantz Confiac, Emmanuel Garijo, Nicolas Marié, Sébastien Desjours, andStéphane Ronchewski
Directors: Benoît Daffis, Jean-Christian Tassy
Writers: David Alaux, Jean-François Tosti, Éric Tosti
Production: TAT Productions, Apollo Films, France 3 Cinéma
Distribution: Thanks to Umbrella Entertainment (Australia) who provided the screener, Viva Pictures (US)
Release Date: Cinemas Australia 11th December2025 | France July 2, 2025, | US October 17, 2025
Runtime: 87 minutes
Review by: Mother of Movies

When Your Christmas Heist Becomes Someone Else’s Therapy Session

Pets on a Train in 2025, is a film that promises one thing (a Christmas feast heist orchestrated by a martial arts-trained raccoon) and delivers something entirely different (a runaway train hostage situation with found family vibes). The animation is gorgeous when it wants to be, the voice work committed. It’s cute. It dips its toes in current trends, but it never gets serious or fall on the floor funny.

Falcon Express (2025): Gorgeous Animation

French animation studio TAT Productions clearly invested their €12.5 million budget into rendering every individual whisker on Maurice the raccoon (who insists on being called Falcon, naturally). When the camera pushes in for extreme close-ups, the first time during the rats’ mountain meditation sequence, the textural detail rivals Pixar’s best work. You can count the hairs on these rodent sensei. But pull back to a medium shot, and suddenly everyone’s been smoothed over like they’ve been hit with a beauty filter. It’s jarring, this inconsistency between intimate detail and broader compositions, as if the animation team had two entirely different mandates depending on shot scale. But it’s still amazing. It looks fabulous.

The setup promises Ocean’s Eleven meets The Polar Express: Falcon, raised by martial arts master rats (because why not), plans “Operation Christmas Feast” to feed his scrappy animal crew by hitting up a luxury train. The criminal mastermind is a friend he met while out and about, called Hans. Falcon’s reputation as the neighborhood Robin Hood who steals from hot dog stands precedes him. Hans the badger shows up with a “sure thing,” and Rico the pigeon, warns him it smells wrong. Spoiler: it absolutely reeks.

Hans isn’t after a heist. He’s after Rex, the German Shepherd police dog who busted him five years ago and got him thrown in the pound. Hans wants revenge, and he’s willing to crash an entire passenger train full of innocent pets to get it. The fact that Hans operates his evil scheme from a caravan in the middle of a forest, complete with a punching bag featuring Rex’s face, was my only genuine laugh-out-loud moment. There’s something magnificently absurd about a criminal mastermind with full remote control of a speeding train living in what amounts to a mobile home surrounded by trees. Peak villain aesthetic, honestly.

The Menagerie of Missed Opportunities

Once the train is hijacked and all the human passengers ejected, we meet the pet passengers. Anna the anaconda, subverts the “scary predator” trope by being unfailingly polite and helpful. Coco the nervous parrot falls instantly for Judy the budgie in a love-at-first-sight subplot and Randy the Chihuahua influencer whose owner has already replaced him with recycled viral videos represents a divergent character possibly with ADHD. Then there’s Victor the posh greyhound, Maggie the spotted cat who’s the only one smart enough to calculate their actual crash trajectory, and an assortment of others including Jimi and Janis the hippy rabbits, Leo the turtle, Momo the clownfish, and Connor the duck.

The film’s strongest commentary targets social media pet exploitation. Randy’s owner doesn’t come to retrieve him because he’s too busy monetizing old footage of throwing cheese at his cat or staging cucumber jump-scares for views. The brown and white Siamese (Candy, I believe, though the film never properly introduces her) commiserates about being content rather than companion. It’s a pointed observation about how pets become props for algorithmic engagement, their actual wellbeing secondary to virality metrics. In a year where AI-generated pet content floods our feeds and animal welfare concerns around “cute” videos intensify. This feels uncomfortably prescient.

But then the film does nothing with it. Randy and the cat make cute eyes at a passerby at the end, presumably get adopted, and that’s it. No resolution about their trauma, no deeper exploration of what it means to be commodified. Just… next.

This pattern repeats throughout. The Christmas feast motivation? Abandoned entirely once the train plot kicks in. Falcon never mentions it again, and when he returns to his rat uncles at the end, there’s no callback, no “we did it” moment, no thematic closure. The rabbits, and turtle join Connor’s “new crew” with zero explanation of what happened to their families. Multiple pets are simply left behind when owners come to collect the survivors, which feels horrifically dark for a G-rated family film but is played as… fine. Anaconda takes Hans away to be prosecuted.

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When Slapstick Can’t Carry Structure

Directors Benoît Daffis and Jean-Christian Tassy, working from a script by the Alaux/Tosti writing trio, pushed out a Christmas time passer. The Johnson & Johnson news helicopter reporters, yes, really, provide running slapstick gags: cameras falling out, battery dying, one of them tumbling from the chopper. It’s the kind of physical comedy that works in isolation but feels increasingly desperate as the film refuses to build tension or stakes. They eventually capture the “heartwarming reunion” between Maggie and her owner, which the cynical news anchors initially dismiss because tragedy sells better than joy.

The film’s pacing suffers from what I can only describe as structural narcolepsy. I fell asleep during the back half and had to rewind, not because I was tired, but because the middle act drags interminably once the initial “we’re trapped on a train” premise exhausts itself. The pets’ plan to lighten the train by jettisoning cargo to reduce weight for the dangerous Devil’s Bridge crossing (correctly calculated by Maggie, the film’s only competent character) should generate suspense. Falcon gets ejected from the train by Hans, rescued by Rico, acquires a car from somewhere (the film genuinely does not explain this), and returns for a showdown that feels obligatory rather than earned.

When Maurice, Falcon’s real name, which he’s been hiding because he’s ashamed of being “just a pigeon’s kid”, finally accepts his identity and Rico as his father, it should land emotionally. And it almost does, because the voice work sells the vulnerability. But the film hasn’t built this relationship enough for it to resonate beyond “standard found family beat #7.” The martial arts rat uncles vanish from the narrative until the final shot, their entire training subplot rendered meaningless. Operation Christmas Feast, the inciting incident, becomes narrative window dressing.

Animation Prowess Wasted on Narrative Apathy

The technical achievement here frustrates precisely because it deserves better. Those close-ups I mentioned. Stunning. The way light catches on Anna’s scales, the individual feather detail on Rico and Coco, the expressive eyes on Rex, this is craftsmanship.

But what’s the point of gorgeous cinematography (in an animated sense, let’s call it compositional framing and visual staging) if the story doesn’t justify the artistry? The film’s color palette leans into warm holiday tones, reds, golds, deep greens, yet the Christmas setting remains purely aesthetic. There’s a wreath on one cabin. Some wrapped presents. That’s it. It’s Christmas because it gives Falcon a reason to steal food from a train.

Christmas Train Movies for Kids 2025

For a movie ostensibly aimed at children, Pets on a Train plays it remarkably safe. There’s no innuendo for the parents, no sly cultural references, nothing approaching the dual-layer sophistication that Pixar pioneered and studios like Illumination have weaponized. It’s aggressively G-rated in a way that feels dated rather than wholesome. Kids might enjoy the colorful chaos and cute animals. The anthropomorphized creatures remain catnip (sorry) for young audiences. But rewatch value? Minimal. There’s nothing here that rewards a second viewing, no hidden details or thematic depth to uncover.

Benoît Daffis and Jean-Christian Tassy previously collaborated on French animated series and shorts, bringing solid technical chops but limited feature experience to Pets on a Train. Their direction favors slapstick over subtlety, which works in episodic formats but struggles across 87 minutes. The writing team, David Alaux, Jean-François Tosti, and Éric Tosti, have credits on French animated features like Pil’s Adventures (2021),

The Filmmakers Behind the Derailment

TAT Productions, the studio behind Pets on a Train (Falcon Express), specializes in family-friendly CGI animation for the European market. Their work prioritizes visual appeal over storytelling innovation, which explains both the film’s technical strengths and narrative weaknesses. Pets on a Train feels like a project designed by committee: take popular elements (Heist movie! Talking animals! Christmas setting! Social media commentary!) and hope they cohere.

The film premiered at Annecy Film Festival in June 2025, one of animation’s most prestigious showcases, which suggests the festival programmers saw something in the technical execution worth highlighting. But festival audiences and general audiences have different expectations. What plays as “charming imperfection” in a curated lineup becomes “why did I pay for this?” in a suburban multiplex.

Pets on a Train 2025 Animated Film Verdict & Rating

Pets on a Train is rated 

2.5 Caravan Masterminds Who Forgot Their Own Evil Plans out of 5

Similar Films for Comparison

If you’re drawn to the “animals on a runaway vehicle” premise, consider:

1. The Secret Life of Pets (2016) – Actually commits to exploring what pets do when owners leave, with sharper comedy and tighter plotting.
2. Zootopia (2016) – Demonstrates how to weave social commentary (prejudice, media manipulation) into animated storytelling without sacrificing entertainment.
3. The Wild (2006) – Another “animals in peril” narrative with similar found family themes, though equally forgettable.
4. Snowpiercer (2013) – Okay, hear me out: runaway train as metaphor for class struggle and survival. Obviously not for kids, but if you’re wondering what a train-based thriller with actual stakes looks like…
5. Zoombies (2016) – No comparison, but it does have monkeys. Sure, they turn into zombies but Pets on a Train doesn’t have monkeys.

Streaming Options for Pets on a Train 2025

Trailer Courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment – Pets on a Train

Pets on a Train

Director: Benoît Daffis, Jean-Christian Tassy

Date Created: 2025-11-28 22:04

Editor's Rating:
2.5

Pros

• Whisker-Level Detail
• Social Media Savagery
• Hans' Forest Lair 
• Maggie's Competence 
• Anna the Polite Anaconda

Cons

• Christmas Ghost Town 
• Narrative Narcolepsy 
• Abandoned Plot Threads
• Inconsistent Animation Quality 
• Zero Rewatch Appeal