Veteran producer Alice Dewey Goldstone shows the grim reality Disney are facing with the likes of Shrek nipping at Uncle Walt's heels.

Desperate times call for desperate measures…so she led her creative team off into the desert to give them an insight into the characters they are about to bring to life.

For a whole week, the layout team, art directors and even songwriters spent eight hours a day on horseback in the Wyoming desert and even slept under the stars to enrich their vision.

"One of the purposes of our trip was to study cow and horse behaviour," said Goldstone on behalf of her saddle-sore creatives.

Well, that's all fine and dandy - but does it show in the finished product? No, not really has to be the honest answer to that one.

When ruthless cattle rustler Alameda Slim (voiced by Randy Quaid) sets his sights on the bankrupt Patch of Heaven dairy farm, the resident cows are up in, er, hooves.

Sassy show beast Maggie (Roseanne Barr), genteel bovine Brit Mrs "Don't they have sarcasm where you come from" Calloway (Judi Dench) and hippy-drippy Grace (Jennifer Tilly) hatch a plot to thwart the interloper.

Putting their differences behind them, they'll head off into the desert, grab the miscreant, nab the $750 reward and pay off the bankloan, securing an idyllic future down on the farm.

However, they've haven't reckoned on Alameda's secret weapon - a banjo-strumming day-glo yodelling habit that mesmerises cattle, rendering them dopily compliant.

This is perfectly decent stuff...but in 2004 appears utterly adrift in a sea of CGI and knowing humour more in tune with today's teenage tastes.

The voicoevers - also including Cuba Gooding Jr in his best performance for an age... a horse called Buck - lend a real warmth to the characters.

The action, too, passes muster, particularly a runaway locomotive thundering headlong across the desert and a saloon bar brawl.

However, you're left with the nagging doubt that those nights spent getting into character in the desert for Goldstone and her crew were all in vain.

Tim Evans