Die Kühe sind los

So, it wasn't too bad. The kids, 4, 7 and 11, loved it. It was a bit jumpy and confusing, but we got some laughs out of it and the kids left smiling. That's pretty much the goal of going to a Disney film anyhow, even though it reminded me more of Warner Bros. and Looney Toons. And its not so terrible for Disney to try something different. It just takes some getting used to. Frankly, I just forgot that it was Disney and watched the show.

But nobody has mentioned the violence. Just like Looney Toons cartoons that we grew up on, this movie was so full of violent acts that I lost count early on. It disturbs me to see cartoon characters suffer such debilitating injuries and the next thing you see they have completely recovered and carry on. What kind of message does this send the kids? "Go ahead and jump off that cliff, you'll walk away"....."Isn't it funny how that man's teeth are falling out of his mouth....."

But if you don't mind Looney Toon violence, the rest of the movie is OK. Hokey, but it's supposed to be. We, the adults, did wish there had been a bit more character development, especially around Pearl, the owner of Little Patch of Heaven, and Buck, the ridiculously macho horse. Loved the voice of the Buffalo and agree that the horse that Buck encouraged to run away was also a great voice. Liked the music too, although it was a bit overwhelming at times.

So enjoy, and remember: its for the kids, not you.

It's the end the trail! After nearly eighty years of loyal traditionally animated service, the Walt Disney Company has decided to call it quits, at least for the foreseeable future. You might be asking, `Why now? Why not years ago?' … First off, this isn't the first time that the staple that made the Walt Disney Company what it is today has faced an almost certain death. In 1986, Disney Feature Animation Studio was on its way out the door with The Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective underperforming at the box office and leaving the talented artists little hope … That's until new management came in, cleaned things up, and, with the help of Roy Disney, brought the animation unit back to its former glory with such hits as The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Yep, that Michael Eisner sure knew what he was doing … Who would have thought that the man who kicked started animation up again at Disney would be the one to kill it? That's the word of the day folks … business. With computer animated features clearly outranking traditional ones, its just common business sense. But one has to wonder, with both traditional animation and Pixar out of the picture, what is Eisner thinking? … If he's doing that at all.

The story follows a group of cows out to track down a criminal in order to collect the reward money to save their farm from being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Maggie is one head strong woman. She's rude, crude, and let's everyone know about it because she's doesn't give a hoot about what they say. She would rule the west … if she wasn't a cow. Unfortunately for her, Maggie's former home was auctioned off after the notorious Alameda Slim took off with their prized cow herd and left the owners with next to nothing. And just when things begin to look on the way with Maggie finding a new happy home at Patch of Heaven dairy farm, the bank declares foreclosure on the farm, leaving the owner three days to pay off the $750 in order to keep the farm. Unwilling to lose another home, Maggie leads a small group consisting of Mrs. Calloway and Grace, the other two bovine residents of the farm, to search for the cow thief but they aren't the only after the larcenist. There's also Buck, a horse with high aspirations but too much enthusiasm to back it up, and Rico, the mysterious bounty hunter who has a dark secret up his sleeve, as well. In the end, it's an all out of for truth, justice, and the bovine way! The story for Home on the Range is another prime example of a plot that looks interesting on paper but clearly doesn't go anywhere once it is projected onto the big screen. The problem is that there is no emotional investment in the characters. Granted this is a children's film and it's not intended to be rocket-science or anything like that but one can make the argument that this is a family film and if the adults don't get anything out of it, who's to say that this isn't anything more then a modest diversion.

What's becoming more of a rare oddity is the use of big name stars in animated features to drive movie-goers and though none of the cast of Home on the Range is necessarily going to have people lining outside the door in giddy anticipation, they are well-known … just how well-known depends on who you talk to. Roseanne Barr, famous for her hit television show Roseanne and more recently for her two cancelled TV programs, headlines the cast as Maggie the cow (Is there any use in inserting a joke here? All the good ones seem to have been used up). Here you have to be wondering what the cast director was thinking when they picked her up? The loud, obnoxious, and crude Roseanne was bad enough but a PG-rated version of her is even worse, if that can be imagined just from this description. Sure the kids may get a chuckle here and there from boorish antics but then so what? Cuba Gooding, Jr. voices the over ambitious Buck the horse but once again the audience is given a character they really don't care about. Buck is treated mostly as a joke with no clear sense of the justice system or what it takes to be a hero. If there was more of that in him, maybe we'd care a little more every time he seems to fail but we don't. The only real highlight in the voice cast, at least from a more mature perspective, would have to be Steve Buscemi, who makes a slight appearance voicing a pint-size partner of Alameda Slim. Why is it that this man seems to work no matter where he is placed?

Overall, Home on the Range is a disappointing and undeserving conclusion to the end of Walt Disney traditional animation and only showcases further evidence to why the genre is heading to the grave in the first place. How can traditional 2-D animation compete with the likes of Pixar with trap-holes like this? Not just on the level of visual graphics but at the story and character development levels as well. With Range, the audience is thrown head first into the plot and rushed to a predictable and dispassionate conclusion with no real emotional investment placed with the characters or the actions they take within the course of the film. Even the villain is a pathetic show … Yodeling? Who's the genius that thought that brilliant idea up? This isn't to say that all of Home on the Range is a pointless effort. The musical score as well as the songs are enjoyable highlights but, as with most other films, if the only amusement you find is the music then save your money and buy the soundtrack. All in all, Home on the Range marks the end of a roller coaster ride for traditional animation at Disney … One only wishes it could have ended on a better note then this.

My Rating: *** out of 5 (Grade: C-)

It has been nearly five years since the release of this recent traditionally animated Disney flick, made in a CGI-dominated time, and I definitely didn't even hear about it at the time of its release. It clearly didn't turn out to be a box office smash, which is probably why I never heard about it (unlike "The Incredibles", the hugely successful CGI-animated feature released the same year), and I don't think I knew about it until I saw it mentioned in a book about animated films a couple years ago. After seeing "Home on the Range", I can definitely see why it tanked.

In the old west, Maggie, Mrs. Calloway, and Grace are three cows, all with very different traits, who live on a dairy farm in Nebraska called Patch of Heaven, owned by an elderly widow named Pearl Gesner. Pearl owes a lot of money, which she unfortunately can't pay, so it appears she will soon lose her farm, and it will be auctioned off! So, the three cows decide to set out to try and save their home. They must track down an outlaw, a cattle rustler named Alameda Slim, who uses a false identity to claim many properties in the state, and hypnotizes cows with his yodeling! On their adventure, they meet others on the same mission, to try and stop Alameda Slim, and due to the different traits of the three cows, they don't always get along, with conflict between Maggie and Mrs. Calloway, which obviously won't make it easier!

Others have already mentioned the lacklustre plot of this film, and I'm going to have to agree wholeheartedly. The plot pretty much completely failed to interest me, since it's very simple and forgettable, and the real lack of humour doesn't help. I only rarely found amusing moments, and kept a straight face for almost the entire thing. For example, there's some weak slapstick, which may appeal to kids, but probably not many others. I found that the funniest parts involved Alameda Slim's dimwitted nephews, parts such as them not being able to recognise their uncle after they've seen him put his simple disguise on, but they are very minor characters. Not only is the plot forgettable, so are the gags and most of the characters. Basically, the film was put together fairly simply, and probably could have been more focused. I found myself indifferent to pretty much everything about it, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

It looks like this film marked the end of a very long era, the era of traditionally animated theatrical Disney movies, which began in 1937 with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and went on with the company long after Walt Disney's death in 1966. Through those decades, so many classics were made in the franchise, so it's unfortunate that they couldn't finish with a much more noteworthy picture. Instead, they finished with a dull one, one which is probably much more appealing to kids than adults, unlike probably most of them, which can be fun for all ages. "Home on the Range" reminds me a lot of "Rock-A-Doodle", a 1991 animated film from Don Bluth, and not one of his more popular efforts. Both are lacklustre animated films with anthropomorphic animals, ones which are basically for the kids, and I've personally found to be very unmemorable.

While the film wasn't a total dud a la "Treasure Planet," it's certainly no "Little Mermaid," or even "Emperor's New Groove," which I consider the best of the latest crop of cartoons for its hip sensibility. "Home on the Range" suffers from an unoriginal and unfunny script, although it is not tediously poor or Saturday-morning-cartoon simple. To begin, there is an overabundance of plastic-playset ready characters (literally a whole farm full): the trio of bounty-hunting heifers played by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly; the yodeling cattle rustler Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) and his three bumbling nephews; the wannabe-hero steed Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr-- who ok'ed that name?); two lascivious bulls; a buffalo bouncer; a peg-legged jackrabbit; and a whole farmyard of pigs, chickens, a goose, and a surly goat. Oh, and Steve Buscemi shows up too, as a caricature of himself in a purple suit and a pencil moustache. Estelle Harris and Patrick Warburton (so memorable in "Toy Story 2" and "Groove," respectively), had brief cameos as well. There's no time for any kind of character development (not even with a sacred Disney "I Want" song), and the thinnest of premises has the cows hunting for Slim in time to get the reward money to save their farm. I was surprised not by the simplicity but by the unnecessary, unfunny bawdiness of the script (the movie opens with a shot of the Barr cow's ample udders, with her voiceover dryly remarking "Yep, they're real. Quit staring." Crossdressing, pee, and fat man jokes follow.) Alan Menken wrote a few snappy but unmemorable tunes (none of which are sung by the characters, but by the likes of Bonnie Raitt and k.d. lang) and a Coplandesque score. The film redeems itself in its art direction, which bursts with Disney color and retro UPA-style angularity. Especially in the opening scenes, a multiplane effect is used to further flatten, rather than deepen, this storybook world. It's an interesting and visually engaging concept that works well for the story. Backgrounds are intricately detailed with drybrush effects that call to mind "Sleeping Beauty;" if that film's art director, Eyvind Earle, had been called upon to paint the rocks and buttes of the American desert, it would have looked very much like this. It's quite stunning, actually, and the best art direction since 1996's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I especially appreciated a background detail in the town scene: one of the buildings was actually only a facade, held up by supports like on a backlot Western set. Similarly, sooner or later, not just critics but parents too will demand the Disney animated features to show that they have something behind that venerable name. "Home on the Range" will tide us over for now, but a renaissance of Disney is getting to be overdue. The Disney animation department (what's left of it), like it or not, needs to take a cue from Pixar and strive for family-friendly originality if they hope to maintain the integrity of the brand. ***

The trailers - especially the trailer on the Finding Nemo DVD - suggested comedy to rival "The Emperor's New Groove," etc. The movie WAS amusing, but not what we've come to expect from recent animated films targeting adult audiences. However, my kids LOVED it, and the theater was full of hearty laughter from all the other kids as well.

"Home on the Range" is full of slapstick humor aimed at a young audience - THIS is a cartoon that remembers what cartoons are supposed to be. And there are plenty of amusing one-liners to keep mom and dad from being bored.

A good, old-fashioned cartoon... "You know, for kids!"