Most millennials grew up with at least a couple Don Bluth movies. Mine were An American Tail, The land Before Time (which I stopped watching for years because it made my sister cry), Anastasia and Titan A. E. Effectively, I didn't see this movie until years later. Before I ever did, most of my childhood awareness of it was simply awareness of the two main characters' appearance, and not of the actual title of the movie. I finally saw it around in my early 20's out of curiosity, and a few years later I decided to revisit it.
This is one of the most unique kids movies I've ever seen, and easily one of the BOLDEST. I mean, this movie covers a plethora of mature topics: gambling, death, murder, loss, and it even has cigar smoke and references to drunkenness. But it's all justified by Bluth fans because "redemption arcs make everything fine." I'm not saying no kid should ever see this, just that it should probably be PG by modern standards. Having said that, I might show eight-year-olds this movie, as I believe they'll be mature enough to handle this by that point.
The boldness of the story makes it much more interesting than most kids movies, as we have real heart and even heartache attached. On that account, we can also thank Don Bluth's strongest sense of direction before Titan A. E. came out, which makes this his most artistic effort before then. On top of that, our cast is just incredible. Burt Reynolds is brilliant as Charlie Barkin, letting the role flow purely naturally. Fun fact: Charlie was modelled after Burt Reynolds, and Reynolds' mannerisms were animated for Charlie as well. Charlie might even be the best character Bluth ever featured in his movies because of the realistic behavior applied to his beliefs and changes. Charlie Sheen and Steven Weber couldn't even come close after replacing Burt (they didn't even sound like Burt). Dom DeLuise does his thing again as Itchy, who's just so funny and lovable to watch. And we have Judith Barsi in yet another perfect role, beating her own performance as Ducky from the Land Before Time. And finally, Vic Tayback is just plain frightening as Carface, who needs stronger development but has a great actor to back it up. Man, knowing that the whole major cast is dead feels weird when applied to this movie.
The movie is a largely consistent whole of themes for the most part, but there are a couple of scenes that aren't fully necessary and could've been tweaked, largely anything involving the alligator. Also, while the score is fine, the musical numbers need a little work. I can't imagine myself humming anything other than "You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down."
Overall, this movie has a lot of good decisions that make up for the bad ones, and because of the uniqueness of this kind of movie, it'll stand out forever. It's more than another fantasy or talking animal movie. It has maturity, themes and meaning. This movie is way better than the more popular cutesy films An American Tail and The land Before Time, which are good but nowhere near as unique.
This is one of the most unique kids movies I've ever seen, and easily one of the BOLDEST. I mean, this movie covers a plethora of mature topics: gambling, death, murder, loss, and it even has cigar smoke and references to drunkenness. But it's all justified by Bluth fans because "redemption arcs make everything fine." I'm not saying no kid should ever see this, just that it should probably be PG by modern standards. Having said that, I might show eight-year-olds this movie, as I believe they'll be mature enough to handle this by that point.
The boldness of the story makes it much more interesting than most kids movies, as we have real heart and even heartache attached. On that account, we can also thank Don Bluth's strongest sense of direction before Titan A. E. came out, which makes this his most artistic effort before then. On top of that, our cast is just incredible. Burt Reynolds is brilliant as Charlie Barkin, letting the role flow purely naturally. Fun fact: Charlie was modelled after Burt Reynolds, and Reynolds' mannerisms were animated for Charlie as well. Charlie might even be the best character Bluth ever featured in his movies because of the realistic behavior applied to his beliefs and changes. Charlie Sheen and Steven Weber couldn't even come close after replacing Burt (they didn't even sound like Burt). Dom DeLuise does his thing again as Itchy, who's just so funny and lovable to watch. And we have Judith Barsi in yet another perfect role, beating her own performance as Ducky from the Land Before Time. And finally, Vic Tayback is just plain frightening as Carface, who needs stronger development but has a great actor to back it up. Man, knowing that the whole major cast is dead feels weird when applied to this movie.
The movie is a largely consistent whole of themes for the most part, but there are a couple of scenes that aren't fully necessary and could've been tweaked, largely anything involving the alligator. Also, while the score is fine, the musical numbers need a little work. I can't imagine myself humming anything other than "You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down."
Overall, this movie has a lot of good decisions that make up for the bad ones, and because of the uniqueness of this kind of movie, it'll stand out forever. It's more than another fantasy or talking animal movie. It has maturity, themes and meaning. This movie is way better than the more popular cutesy films An American Tail and The land Before Time, which are good but nowhere near as unique.