Rock a Doodle

First off, I have to say that I really like the idea of Rock-a-Doodle. The basic story of the rooster having to save his farm from eternal darkness and rain by crowing the sun up could have made for such a great movie. But I feel that, as it was, it wasn't nearly as good a movie as it could have been.

A huge part of my problem with this movie was the main character, Edmund. This kid/cat is so darn annoying. His speech impediment got very old very fast, and it just felt like he was trying way too hard to sound cute. Also, as another reviewer pointed out earlier, he belabored to death the fact that he was "too little" to do pretty much anything, which became irritating.

It was also bothersome that this movie couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a full-blown musical or not. The Chanticleer/King songs were fine, because they were part of the whole singing rooster story. But it seemed that the other random songs were pretty unnecessary. The owls' songs were bad enough, but did they really feel the need to have the bit with the bouncer toads' song?? These random musical numbers felt like they came out of some particularly bad Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. If they really wanted to make this movie a musical, they needed to have some real full-length songs instead of those short musical snippets given to the villains.

But by far, my biggest problem with this movie is that it's just not very good at storytelling. It was fine that Patou (Phil Harris in his last role!) narrated the story. However, at times, they relied too much on the narration to tell us things instead of showing us. This is especially true in the whole Goldie subplot. Patou told us that a) Goldie was a lot smarter and nicer than she seemed at first and b) that she was really falling for Chanticleer although she was only supposed to fake it. It really would have helped Goldie's character development if there had been scenes where she was gradually acting smarter and nicer. And the movie would instantly have been better, I believe, if there had been a scene showing the moment where Goldie knew that she was in love with Chanticleer for real instead of just having narration. As it was, it felt like Goldie was just tacked onto the movie so that Chanticleer could have a love interest.

There's a good movie somewhere in Rock-a-Doodle. And I won't deny that it was a special part of many people's childhoods. However, for the reasons above (as well as others I don't care to bore you with), it just didn't live up to that potential, and turned out to be just another mediocre-to-bad kids' movie.

Clearly this wasn't Don Bluth's finest day as a filmmaker- it's nowhere near the imagination present in The Secret of NIMH and An American Tail, but it's still entertaining for kids. It certainly worked when I first saw it, and I remember watching it several times (maybe cause of the songs which were like filtered but enjoyable Elvis-type tunes, or some of the designs with the characters like the evil owls). It's about a little boy who gets transformed into a cat- his storybook, which comes to life, is about a rooster on a farm who can't do his patented COCKADOODLE call- and soon he's swept up in a quest to bring Chaunticlair back from his fall into a career as an Elvis star.

It's not really too amazing, and it's probably even cliché by the standards of any animation let alone Bluth's. But there's enough invention and fun and quirks to make it worthwhile as a children's film, if not as an overall family flick (adults will most likely enjoy the final performance of Phil Harris, the voice of Baloo). Some of it is even very funny, like when the dastardly inept small owl who keeps spouting exclamations like "ANNIHILATION!" tries to skewer the heroes while tied up. It's like a minor rockabilly farm comedy, and there's certainly worse out there for your kids.

if children's movies were meant to be judged the same way that adult movies are then we would have nothing that children could grasp with there imagination. this film had more or my friends, and cousins glued to the TV than any other children's movie i have seen and i have seen a lot of them. this film has imagination, it has color, it has a good story, it tells the tail of the King himself Elvis Arron Presley in a way. this film was one of my favorites that i ever saw as a child and no one will convince me that it wasn't a good film considering that this film helped me pass time on both good and bad days. it is at least deserving of some credit for the fun filled story contained in it. lighten up people children's films are not designed around being able to entertain people our age as would movies that we would normally comment on. at least i don't treat children's films that way. a good film for children of all ages.

In all honesty, I never saw this as a child. Perhaps that accounts somewhat for why I don't enjoy it very much now. Unlike many other children's films which have plots that people of all ages could appreciate, this was contrived and full of holes that you could "drive a John Deere tractor through", as Chanticleer would say. The songs were lackluster and all sounded the pretty much same, and the kid that played Edmond brings a whole new level to bad child actors. I did have a few good laughs though, mostly due to the good ol' Patou, so I can't rate it too low. Overall, if you didn't see this as a kid, you more than likely wont like it now.

6/10

Rock-A-Doodle is a movie that some say is the start of Don Bluth's streak of bad films until Anastasia was released, but to me, it sounds like an underrated gem. Telling the story of a boy named Edmond, a boy turned into a kitten by the Duke of Owls, he has to help the other farm animals bring back Chanticleer, whom they laughed out, as their farm is in danger of flooding.

Now, the movie is seen as a box office bomb, and one of the reasons why is executive meddling. Originally, there was not going to be any live-action segments, but MGM saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a successful film that combined live-action and animation, and decided they want a piece of the money pie it was making. Also, a lot of scenes were cut or edited for being "too scary for kids", either because of notes for test audiences or done to avoid a PG rating (the test audiences notes being mostly because Don decided to take their advice after All Dogs Go To Heaven was negatively received for its dark content). The result was a different movie that strayed far from what Don originally planned, and to me, that could be one of the reasons that caused it to bomb.

But despite those changes, the movie is still good. It still has some dark scenes that is a trademark of any Don Bluth film, the characters are memorable, and the music is good, as the country music songs are actual country music instead of the stuff we have today that masquerades as country music. This is a film work checking out.