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Not so fine feathered friends
Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.
While there are worse Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons overall and even from 1932, that doesn't stop 'Feathered Follies' from being a bland, visually unattractive and tonally strange cartoon. There are a couple of decent things but they are far overshadowed by everything else that 'Feathered Follies' does badly wrong.
Best asset about 'Feathered Follies' is the music score, pretty much the best thing consistently of Van Beuren's output. Sometimes even the only good thing. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.
Some synchronisation is neat and some of the backgrounds have more detail and ambition than many Van Beuren before.
Coming onto the numerous criticisms, the animation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.
Story is very slight to the point of non-existence and is paced far too hectically, the action has very little breathing room and it does make things choppy and disjointed. Everything is very random, suffers from a lack of organisation and any kind of sense.
Likewise with endearing or memorable characters, being either annoying or personality deprived. All of them are not well animated at all and look nothing like what animals they're meant to be.
Generally the cartoon is very low on laughs, actually none of it is remotely amusing and it all feels rather disorganised. Nothing is inventive, never rising above the forgettable, while the tone is just odd and like Van Beuren had no idea what direction or tone to take. Whether to go down the cute, saccharine route, which it started off as, or the surreal, bizarre one, which it becomes increasingly and not done imaginatively or coherently at all. 'Feathered Follies' tries to do both and it just feels very disjointed and muddled.
To conclude, another weak effort from Van Beuren. They are capable of above average and more, there are quite a number of examples out there, it is sad that we don't see that more and that the studio generally is more memorable for the bad stuff. 3/10 Bethany Cox
While there are worse Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons overall and even from 1932, that doesn't stop 'Feathered Follies' from being a bland, visually unattractive and tonally strange cartoon. There are a couple of decent things but they are far overshadowed by everything else that 'Feathered Follies' does badly wrong.
Best asset about 'Feathered Follies' is the music score, pretty much the best thing consistently of Van Beuren's output. Sometimes even the only good thing. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.
Some synchronisation is neat and some of the backgrounds have more detail and ambition than many Van Beuren before.
Coming onto the numerous criticisms, the animation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.
Story is very slight to the point of non-existence and is paced far too hectically, the action has very little breathing room and it does make things choppy and disjointed. Everything is very random, suffers from a lack of organisation and any kind of sense.
Likewise with endearing or memorable characters, being either annoying or personality deprived. All of them are not well animated at all and look nothing like what animals they're meant to be.
Generally the cartoon is very low on laughs, actually none of it is remotely amusing and it all feels rather disorganised. Nothing is inventive, never rising above the forgettable, while the tone is just odd and like Van Beuren had no idea what direction or tone to take. Whether to go down the cute, saccharine route, which it started off as, or the surreal, bizarre one, which it becomes increasingly and not done imaginatively or coherently at all. 'Feathered Follies' tries to do both and it just feels very disjointed and muddled.
To conclude, another weak effort from Van Beuren. They are capable of above average and more, there are quite a number of examples out there, it is sad that we don't see that more and that the studio generally is more memorable for the bad stuff. 3/10 Bethany Cox
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- TheLittleSongbird
- Jan 24, 2018
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- Runtime6 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
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