Jock

This was the worst movie that I have seen in 2011, how could this movie be named "Jock". Not only is the animation totally crap but the story is completely different from the novel. This novel is based on a true story and even the 1992 movie was closer to the truth than this movie. I was totally disappointed at this movie that starred the voices of people like Donald Sutherland, Helen Hunt and Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu. The best version of this movie is a South African production that was made in the 80's, based most accurately on the true story. Please find the novel and read it to see the real story, this is one of the best South African legends written.

This is the retelling of a well known South African story in 3D animated format and a change of focus to younger viewers. If one expects this to be a faithful retelling of the classic story of Jock of the Bushveld, then one is likely to be disappointed. Unlike the original story, which has Percy Fitzpatrick as the narrator, this is a fresh take on the story told from the point of view the young dog Jock.

In essence, this is the story of a young dog coming of age whilst his owner is making his own journey of discovery in the wilderness of early South African. It is a journey of discovery and of overcoming some of the hardships of the environment and the characters that inhabited it.

Given that much of the story unfolds against the backdrop of a gold-rush mad, but essentially unspoilt area of South Africa, it is wonderful to see that the feel of the wild game rich savanna and the vibrancy of the early mining towns of that time are so well captured.

The animation is not world class - but it does not need to be. The story is well told and the acting is first class. It is particularly heartening to hear the voices of Ted Danson, Helen Hunt and Donald Sutherland in this format. Brian Adams also did a sterling performance of giving the lead character a voice. A cameo by Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu is also interesting.

This is a movie made to be enjoyed by kids - it achieves this purpose easily.

Funny, especially a monkey named Basil and a rooster like friend of Jock's. This storyline is more for adults. The narrator of the story sounds really old with a not so good voice.

A lot of cruelty in the story, death of dogs mother, fighting between animals and George a very mean gorilla who takes orders from his-"master" who owns a store. Most characters are mean and aggressive, too much like real life.

The animation is great and goes really well with the singing and dancing of the characters. The music and singing is great too, especially an act by Basil the monkey who used to work in a club with George the gorilla who played the piano.

I found some scenes hard to understand at times with conversations going on in the background and other characters talking. The story has a good ending. Story tells of doing the right thing under difficult circumstances. It uses animals and people in different times of their lives. The writers do this with Jock and his owner who is honest, hard working and upstanding in character.

"Jock" is not all that impressive for an animated movie. You'd think that this was a kids movie, but given the storyline, it sort of intended for a more grown up, if not mature, audience, because the storyline is far from a cheerful and silly one that is usually seen in animated movies.

Personally I didn't really find the movie all that interesting, because the characters in the movie were fairly plain and sort of one-dimensional. It wasn't really characters that you really got to love and have any type of relationship with.

I will say that the CGI animation and the visuals were quite good though, and that is what really works in favor for the movie. If you have smaller kids in the household, you might want to go for a different animated movie, as there is something underlying more sinister to this storyline, which may not be suitable for just anyone.

Also the names billed on the voice cast list does impress as there are some nice names here; Donald Sutherland, Helen Hunt, Ted Danson and William Baldwin. More impressively, then they got Desmond Tutu to add his voice to this as well. As for Bryan Adams, well I will leave that untouched, as I have no personal liking or disliking for him or his work in any way.

In this day and age, "Jock" is nothing impressive and doesn't really move the bar for CGI animated movies in any way.

(2011) Jock: The Hero Dog COMPUTER ANIMATION/ FAMILY ADVENTURE

There's is just so many things wrong with this movie I think I'm being way too generous upon giving this movie 40%. It's the story about Jock the Hero dog narrated by acting veteran, Donald Sutherland while living in Africa. I really hate movies where I'm able to see things to remember at the beginning but are not addressed about it later. What that means is that is that it loses focus in regards to the story. I mean , although the computer animation is not that great, my first focus always regards in the rhythm and flow of it's story. The movie opens with Jock as a young pup, who was ridiculed and cast off aside by his older and bigger brothers in which on one instance he's squeezed out of a food bowl. They also call him 'runt' because of his size in comparison to his older siblings. A young explorer happens to be by and he asks what kind of pup he would want to adopt from this African tribe, and one of them suggested him to take the young 'runt' who was blatantly taken by a vicious bird. At this point, I'm wondering, how come dogs can converse with some animals and not be able to converse with others, for which the movie never answers. Anyways, after the runt manages to escape from this nasty bird, he is then saved again from a drowning by the young explorer who eventually gave him the name Jock. Jock, the dog who's able to converse with the chicken who really looks like a rooster promises his mom and dad that he is going to look after him as well as serve as it's guide on his so-called journeys. I also don't like the trend here where all the bad guys all have Australian accents whereas all the good guys all have perfectly English accents. This young explorer is looking for gold and needed a dog to protect and guide him to his advantage since he's gullible. Now, at this point I've already watched half way, is when this movie started to lose me, is when young Jock goes back to see his mother again, except that their is no mentioning of the whereabouts of his father or his other brothers. It's like they were only important to serve only one purpose, and that was to be part of a story for young Jock. His mother does eventually get killed by a leopard defeated by Jock from a stroke of luck but instead of being saddened about it, I was still quite baffled about how it came to this at the first place. I remembered one of my other problems I had with this movie is the very same problem I had with "The Lion King", is the fact they would pick a particular group of animals to be bad making other groups of animals to be good. In Kimba the white Lion, he becomes king in a spawn of weeks and years, but in the Lion King, it almost appears that he became king only in a week. .