Rock Dog

So this movie was a little more than what I expected (Or just better than I expected).

It starts out with this cool 2D animation that tells the story of a sheep town being guarded by a kung fu dog being attacked by wolves. In order to keep the wolves from coming back he outlaws music, and of course his son Brody grows up wanting to be a musician so he goes to the big city to become a Rock Dog.

One of my favorite parts of the film is their concept of the rock park, a place in the city were musicians meet and perform. It's like a cross between Venice Beach and CBGBs. Really cool.

The animation was not that good nothing too great or unique, but I did love the story. The typical animation type of a animal that was met for one thing and is known for one thing, wanting to do something out of the norm, but that rock setting in which is goes over the clichés of Rock and Roll specifically that late 80s early 90s version in which the movie seems to be happening.

Plus a lot of real cool characters in the movie. My favorite being Angus Shattergood a cool cat voiced by Eddie Izzard who is the living persona of Rock and Roll.

My biggest pet peeve of the film is actually that the movie is really short. I mean really short. It was barely over an hour. Usually, when animated movies are that short they give us a animated short at the beginning of the film to make up for it. that did not happen this time. You can see the story coming to an end, and you think to yourself more is coming, but it does not.

So bland animation tells a great story so simple that it makes the movie seem short. For that I would wait for the DVD to come out to see it.

http://cinemagardens.com

This movie was given no promotion whatsoever in Australia and so I watched this with my children (14 and 11) with no expectations.

While the movie didn't break any new ground, it was entertaining, family-friendly and quite fun overall. The kids enjoyed it and there was enough humour to keep the parents happy too. When I came online to recommend it, I was quite shocked to see the low ratings and critical reviews - although the financial flop explains why it never made it to cinemas or even rated a mention locally.

Rock Dog isn't brilliant - this isn't 'Kubo' or a Pixar classic. But it's fun, family entertainment and for that audience, it's definitely worth a watch.

This film tells the story of a dog in a snowy mountain somewhere in Tibet. He has an aspiring dream to be a rock musician, but his military father does not approve of him pursuing his dreams.

"Rock Dog" is the second Chinese produced animation I watched recently. In this animation, there a lot of Chinese elements portrayed in it. The Chinese elements are mostly signs in Chinese, and the design of some of the characters. However, the film still feels Western because the whole idea of pursuing your dreams a quite a Western thing to do. the story is quite funny, and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. The moment when the door is opened by the wolves made me laugh! the music is good as well. I enjoyed watching it.

I went to go see rock dog, having very little knowledge and expectations of the movie. After sitting in my chair for 90 min I thought "Despite some clichés, it was better then I hoped for it to be." I saw the movie to be more fun and heartfelt then funny but it does have humor the whole family can enjoy.

Coming from a big lifelong animation fan, 'Rock Dog' may not be on par with the best films of the best major animation studios (i.e. Disney, Pixar, Studio Ghibli), nor does it ever try to be or be anything more than it is.

It's also much better than especially anything from Video Brinquedo and, although to me critics do not deserve anywhere near the over-the-top bashing they get on the internet, 'Rock Dog' is another case of liking it much more than they did and going against the grain. 'Rock Dog' is less than perfect, but for the imperfections there are it has its heart in the right place, it knows who to aim it at and really tries to appeal to all ages and it doesn't try too hard or attempt to do more than it needs to.

'Rock Dog' may not be ground-breaking in story, a good deal of it is derivative, and some of the plotting concerning the villain's plan is a bit strange and takes away at times from the rest of the story. The film is also too short, if it were twenty minutes longer it would have fleshed out the slightly underdeveloped lead character Boni more and done more with the disapproving parent cliché.

However, the animation may not be mind-blowing or imaginative but it's colourful and detailed enough and at least the characters don't look ugly. The music is truly amazing and along with the supporting characters steals the show. In particular "Glorious", which lives up to its name.

Writing is witty and heartfelt and while the story execution is less than perfect it goes at a bright and breezy pace, is fun, is inspiring, is well-meaning and has a heart of gold that comes over movingly. Although he could have been better fleshed out more, the lead character is an easy to relate to one. Stealing the show though is the hilarious character Angus Scattergood, a character so rich in personality and so much fun he is worthy of a solo outing of some kind. Fleetwood Yak (nostalgic adults will have a good chuckle at this) is fun too.

Voice acting is good, with the best contribution coming from a note-perfect Eddie Izzard. JK Simmons is perfectly gruff as well and Luke Wilson is a likable lead. On paper, Lewis Black didn't seem right to me for a villain but he won me over, making Linnus a suitably formidable and somewhat cool villain. Mae Whitman is charming.

Overall, didn't love it but liked it better than thought. 7/10 Bethany Cox