Animated films don’t come much wackier.

But, then, few folks have Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper cartoonist Berkeley Breathed’s marvelous sense of the absurd.

They're on the case: from left, Louie the Lobster, Koala, Letícia dos Anjos, Hitpig, Polecat and Super Rooster.

The primary characters in this hilarious fantasy — a co-production of Britan’s Aniventure and Canada’s Cinesite animation firms — are “borrowed” from Breathed’s 2008 picture book, Pete & Pickles. Breathed concocted this film’s story, which then was scripted by Dave Rosenbaum and Tyler Werrin. Cinzia Angelini and David Feiss share the director’s chair.

The title character is an anthropomorphic swine introduced as a sidekick to Big Bertha (voiced by Lorraine Ashbourne), who has made a career of retrieving lost pets for their owners; she refused to return Hitpig to a bacon farm when he was just a piglet, and instead became his mentor.

(A minor quibble: Calling this character — and this film — Hitpig is a bizarre choice. He isn’t an assassin, and there must’ve been better choices for name and title.)

Alas, Bertha exits the story unexpectedly, after misjudging an assignment. Hitpig (Jason Sudeikis, at his gravelly best) takes over the “family business,” which comes complete with a tricked-out CatchVan that also boasts a snarky computer system (voiced by Shelby Young).

But Hitpig has, of late, lost track of the morality of each assignment. Catching and returning a polecat (RuPaul) to the facility that subjected it to cruel experiments — which left it with nuclear-powered farts (!) — is bad enough; shipping a feisty escaped koala (Hannah Gadsby) back to the zoo, where it’s once again mauled by children, is even worse.

Such activity also has made a mortal enemy: Brazilian animal rights activist Letícia dos Anjos (Anitta), who rescues critters as quickly as Hitpig catches them.

In his heart of hearts, Hitpig would rather be a chef. He makes a mean omelet, and the manner in which he’s able to slide back and forth along his van’s tall prep counter is merely one of this story’s many clever touches.

Elsewhere...

The Leapin’ Lord of the Leotard (Rainn Wilson), a corpulent, dangerously narcissistic — and failed — Las Vegas performer, laments his inability to carry on the family tradition of dance-oriented animal acts. His last-ditch effort involves half a dozen dyed poodles and a meek elephant named Pickles (Lilly Singh). 

Alas, the easily enraged Lord is too fat to leap very far; gravity always has its way. In the manner of a truly bully, he blames Pickles, and frequently sends her to bed — locked in a small trailer — without dinner.

And, at other times, keeps her in line with his pet crocodile. Who is named Fluffy.

(Breathed is remarkably, inventively outrageous.)

With an assist from the Leotard Lord’s janitor (Dave Rosembaum), a kind man who loves animals, Letícia clandestinely snatches Pickles’ van one night. Their destination: India, where Pickles hopes to find her family. The outraged Leotard Lord hires Hitpig, promising a million-dollar reward; the shrewd swine catches up with Letícia and Pickles during their layover in London.

Hitpig evades Letícia and retrieves Pickles, only to find that his CatchVan has been towed. (Well, he did leave it in a “no parking” zone.) Wanting to earn the elephant’s trust, Hitpig lets Pickles believe that he’ll help her reach India: a lie which — as this story proceeds — begins to weigh more heavily on his conscience.

The developing bond between Pickles and Hitpig is this story’s heart. She’s trusting, naïve and recklessly impulsive; Rosenbaum and Werrin concoct all manner of crazy crises resulting from her hard-charging curiosity. Watching Pickles somehow squeeze her oversized body into vehicles, buildings, airplane restrooms — and bathtubs — never gets old.

Sudeikis, in turn, plays Hitpig like a jaded and world-weary private detective, given to growly one-liners and frequent bad puns. But his gaze often is sorrowful and resigned, and his heart melts every time Pickles favors him with a kind word or trusting gaze.

Equal attention is paid to Hitpig’s relationship with Letícia, which eventually becomes complicated ... for both of them. (C’mon; we know where this is going, right?)

Subsequent escapades take place in San Francisco and back in Las Vegas, involving hot air balloons, a multi-story luxury home, and the Leotard Lord’s circus-style show palace. By this point, the critter roster also has expanded to include a lobster named Louie and television star Super Rooster (both voiced by Charlie Adler), who has genuine super-powers.

The jaw-dropping climax takes things to a whole new level of preposterous.

Sight gags abound, and I spotted at least two sightings of Bill the Cat — from Bloom County — but no sign of Opus. (I must’ve missed him; he’s gotta be there somewhere.) Best incidental comic touch: a young boy present during much of the action, who keeps missing it because his face is buried in a screen.

Isabella Summers’ lively score is interrupted by well-placed pop and rock anthems such as “Born to Be Wild,” “Down Under,” “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and the Miami Sound Machine’s “Conga.”

Angelini and Feiss keep things moving at a rat-a-tat pace; their entire film has the momentum and comic timing of classic Warner Bros. cartoons.

Viewers of all ages will have a lot of fun with this one. 

This movie is extremely exasperating.

During a long and (mostly) illustrious career, director Steven Soderberg has come in two flavors:

Realtor Cece (Julia Fox, far right) shows off the house to its soon-to-be new owners: from left, Chloe (Callina Liang), Chris (Chris Sullivan), Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Rebekah (Lucy Liu). Trouble is, the house already has a resident tenant...

• the occasional cinematic experimenter who stretches the medium, starting with 1989’s Sex, Lies and Videotape, and continuing with 2002’s utterly unwatchable Full Frontal, and now this deliberately challenging take on the classic haunted house story.

The “gimmick” here is that the entire story emerges from the point of view of the ghost trapped within its lavish suburban home. The film never leaves the house, because the ghost cannot.

Okay, potentially clever in concept ... but the execution is an assault on the senses. The house is empty as scripter David Koepp’s narrative begins, and this entity initially swoops from room to room with supernatural speed, spinning and gyrating in a manner certain to induce vertigo and even nausea in viewers prone to motion sickness.

As usual, Soderberg is responsible for his own cinematography — “concealed” behind his familiar pseudonym, as Peter Andrews — so he’s wholly responsible for this dizzying assault on the senses. And although this spectral entity soon settles down a bit, its occasional whip-fast plunges — from one room to another — remain jarring.

The house soon is purchased and tastefully furnished by the not-so-typical American family of Rebekah (Lucy Liu), Chris (Chris Sullivan) and their two high school-age children, Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang).

We learn more about this family as the ghost eavesdrops on them, individually and collectively. Each revelatory session is a single tracking shot — some fleeting, some impressively long — which then cuts to a brief black screen, as the ghost slides through a wall to go elsewhere (at least, that’s what it feels like).

It soon becomes clear that Rebekah is clandestinely up to something shady, likely a sort of financial swindling, which worries Chris enough to think about separating. But he can’t, because he needs to be around for their fragile daughter, still deeply traumatized by the recent drug overdose of two friends, one her former bestie.

The unpleasantly arrogant Tyler, a bullying jock who swears constantly and believes that he walks on water, enjoys playing cruel pranks on vulnerable classmates; he also has no patience with his sister’s fragility. To make matters worse, Rebekah’s unwholesome fondness for him — at the expense of practically ignoring Chloe — borders on a Jocasta complex.

Not long into the story, this quartet is augmented by Tyler’s friend Ryan (West Mulholland), who may as well have the phrase “slimy bastard” tattooed on his forehead, and soon has designs on the susceptible Chloe. Ryan turns out to be a total creep in more ways than one.

Lemmetellya, spending 90 minutes with these folks is a bundle of laughs. (Not.)

The ghost’s “home” is the closet in what has become Chloe’s bedroom; it frequently watches her through the slotted doors. Likely due to her highly agitated state, Chloe soon senses it, even stares directly at it. Perhaps intending to confirm her suspicions, while Chloe takes a shower at one point, the ghost moves some of her books across the room.

That’s a clever bit of cinematic wizardry, and unexpected enough to make one’s heart skip a beat.

The question, then, is whether the ghost is benign, possibly helpful ... or malignant.

Honestly, though, I couldn’t have cared less.

Liu, long an actress with a range that stretches from A to B, makes Rebekah brittle, spiteful, secretive and downright dismissive of her husband and daughter. Sullivan’s Chris is a hapless, ineffectual dweeb who lacks the balls to call out his wife as a selfish bitch. Maday quite successfully plays Tyler as a narcissistic asshole; Mulholland makes Ryan equally unpalatable.

We’re intended to sympathize with Chloe, and Liang is convincing as a badly wounded sparrow. Behind closed doors, though, Chloe has a reckless, self-destructive streak; this makes her less sympathetic.

Natalie Woolams-Torres and Lucas Papaelias pop up briefly as Lisa and Carl; she’s “sensitive” to otherworldly presences, and immediately perceives the home’s unseen fifth occupant. Woolams-Torres’ jolt of alarm, as Lisa initially attempts to cross the front door’s threshold, is note-perfect.

But moments like that are too few and far between. Most of this film is a slog, and a disorienting one (the latter certainly deliberate, but to no avail.)

Presence had an understandably brief theatrical release earlier this year, and now it’s available via streaming services. Soderbergh received accolades in certain quarters: “One of the scariest movies you’ll see all this year,” “It will chill you,” and so forth.

Stuff and nonsense. It’ll do nothing of the kind. 

TheWrap cheekily dubs this “The romantic sniper monster movie you’ve been waiting for,” and that’s a fair description.

When Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) finally figure out a way to meet in person, the flickering sparks of mutual attraction become incandescent.

Unfortunately, it’s eventually necessary to Provide Answers, and this film’s second half — although a rip-snortin’ roller coaster of pell-mell action — loses its smarts. The Reason For All This leaves far too many questions, hanging chads and plot holes large enough to fill the gorge in question.

Many films of this nature conclude with viewers sputtering “But, but, but...!” and wondering what logically would happen next, but this one’s in a league all its own.

Events begin as professional assassin Drasa (Joy) — a Lithuanian frequently employed by the Kremlin for covert ops — successfully completes an assignment with a long-range sniper rifle. She carefully retrieves the single spent cartridge shell and — during a subsequent meeting with her father, Erikas (William Houston) — hands it to him by way of purging her “sorrow.” He places it into a pouch laden with scores (hundreds?) of such shells.

But she’s shattered to learn that he’s dying of cancer. Unwilling to succumb slowly and painfully, he announces that he’ll end his life early the following year, on Valentine’s Day. Her chagrin is complex: Aside from not wanting to lose him, how will she then exorcise her sorrows?

Joy and Houston play this scene masterfully. She has long been adept at finely nuanced expressions and body language, since bursting onto the scene in the 2020 miniseries, The Queen’s Gambit. A wealth of emotions come into play here, particularly during the silences between sparse dialogue.

Elsewhere, in the States, former U.S. Marine scout/sniper Levi Kane (Teller) has lost his psychological edge; he suffers from nightmares about previous assignments. He’s nonetheless recruited by Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), a high-level spook of some sort, for a highly unusual, year-long assignment.

Levi is drugged during the subsequent plane flight, and has no idea of location — aside from “northern hemisphere,” since the season hasn’t changed — upon reaching his destination: a tall, well-fortified bunker tower on the western side of a vast, mist-enshrouded gorge. Levi is briefed by his predecessor: Jasper “J.D.” Drake (Sope Dirisu), a former British Royal Marine corporal. 

The tower’s weaponry is augmented by automated turret defenses running along this side of the gorge, along with suspended mines against the walls below; the entire set-up also boasts a powerful cloaking device that conceals everything from orbiting satellites.

All of this defensive armory is designed to prevent the “monstrous creatures” within the gorge from escaping into the outside world. Earlier tower guardians dubbed them “hollow men,” in reference to the T.S. Eliot poem of the same name, which depicts the end of the world.

(Poetry figures strongly in this entire story.)

This vast defensive structure has an identical counterpart directly across the gorge, on the eastern side: a rare display of cooperation between the two world super-powers. Even so, communication between the two sides is forbidden.

J.D. wishes Levi good luck, and hikes out toward his prearranged pick-up point.

It’s September, and the film’s next half hour proceeds without dialogue: a brilliant display of storytelling via body language, pantomime and facial expression.

Levi’s days are filled with maintenance responsibilities, to ensure all defenses remain operational. Eventually, though, curiosity prompts the use of his sniper scope to see who’s staffing the eastern tower ... and it’s Drasa (of course!). She, in turn, begins to keep an eye on him.

Her birthday arrives a few weeks later. Mildly drunk — both towers are well stocked with alcohol (which, upon reflection, seems unwise) — Drasa impulsively violates protocol and writes Levi a message. He briefly balks, but relents when she gets his attention more directly.

As the days pass, their exchanged messages become more personal and flirty. Joy again excels here, every graceful movement as carefully calculated as that of a ballet dancer; Drasa becomes saucy and mocking, with a come-hither gaze to die for. Teller’s similarly shaded performance is more restrained and cautious; even so, Levi can’t help succumbing to Drasa’s impish behavior.

Autumn slides into winter — interrupted by one scary “incident” — and they begin to play chess, and share music on improvised drum sets (cheeky nods to the actors’ respective roles in Queen’s Gambit and 2014's Whiplash). They bond to the degree possible, given the obvious handicap. Dean’s script doesn’t miss a trick; Levi and Drasa’s inventive efforts at long-distance intimacy become quite charming.

Then Valentine’s Day hits.

Seeing Drasa suddenly shattered, not knowing why, Levi acts impulsively.

Since all of this film’s publicity stills show the two characters side by side, in full battle mode, it obviously isn’t a spoiler to reveal that Levi figures out how to bridge the gorge. (I mean, let’s get serious; you knew they had to get together, right?)

Then everything goes to hell ... in more ways than the obvious.

The story’s action-laden second half feels like an entirely different movie: laden with contrivance, confusion and a kitchen-sink approach to mayhem. Levi and Drasa endure only because the script says they do. Sure, vicarious thrills ’n’ chills abound, but they’re in service of what devolves into a dumb, monster-laden action flick.

The first hour’s intelligence and sly subtlety are entirely absent.

Credit where due, Derrickson and editor Frédéric Thoraval move the second hour at a lively clip, clearly hoping to hold our attention via sheer momentum. In fairness, I’m sure that’ll be enough for many viewers.

The tech credits are excellent. Production designer Rick Heinrichs does an exceptional job with the towers and their accompanying defenses; I love the little details within Levi’s quarters, such as the books, epigrams and poems scrawled onto one wall, and other bits and bobs.

The massive makeup department clearly had fun with wigs, teeth, prosthetics and everything else necessary to bring all manner of beasties to life. Visual effects supervisors Erik Nordby, Anelia Asparuhova and Sebastian von Overheidt also kept busy; everything about this crazy setting feels persuasively authentic.

The score, from the indefatigable Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, slides from spooky piano riffs and ominous synth — initially — to warped guitars and crashing drums, when the action kicks in.

On sum, The Gorge isn’t a bad way to spend a vicarious evening ... but it could — should — have been better.