Chantecler, o Rei do Rock

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.

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.

Although I think that along with Troll with Central Park that this is one of the weaker Don Bluth movies, I personally don't think it is that bad. When you compare the animation to gems like the Secret of Nimh and American Tail, you do think it is disappointing. Some of it, and I am putting emphasis on the some, was a bit Saturday-morning standard, and some of the minor characters were drawn rather weirdly. The non-animated parts were quite jarring to be honest with you, and seemed rather flat. Though i will say the animation is nowhere near as bad as people have said it is. I liked the incidental music, not so much the songs, they just seemed rather lacklustre as I am used to hearing Barry Manilow and Cynthia Weil songs, not Elvis-style ones. Although there was some excellent singing from Glenn Campbell, the songs' lyrics were rather mediocre. Also the owl's songs, or recitatives as I prefer to call them, sounded the same every time. However the voice overs were the redeeming merits. We all know from Disney classics such as Robin Hood and the Jungle Book, that Phil Harris is very talented at singing and acting, and he was put to good use here as Patou,("you're rocking the boat") although his narration did get distracting after a while, as the story is admittedly too heavily reliant on the narration. The narration in fact was to me more of a mini-commentary, that had been over simplified. However, Chistopher Plummer was wonderful as the voice of the Duke,("if I kill my nephew, would it be murder or charity?") who wasn't only the best character, but one of the better Bluth villains, he was really evil in some scenes, like when you first meet him. His performance was worth an award, it was so good. I also liked Edmund and Goldie, Chanticlair was very likable and the Duke's nephew was hilarious in some scenes, like when he screams Annihilation. In conclusion, one of the weaker Bluth movies, does have a number of redeeming merits, and not that bad. Anyone who's seen the secret of Nimh sequel will know how awful that was. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I've been told by a lot of people that this movie is the first of the mediocre entries (except Anastasia) in the early/late 90s that caused Don Bluth's career to go downhill, but as for me, I think I actually found this along with The Pebble and the Penguin to be very decent. Why?

Well, I will admit, the story was weird and predictable and has a lot of flaws that went nowhere despite it being supposedly charming. The characters were good. Edmund was okay, but nothing special, Chanticleer and the others were very decent, but the Grand Duke of Owls' henchman and the fox guy that wants some money for using Chanticleer to sing for the audiences were not that interesting. I think that the best character throughout the whole movie is the Grand Duke of Owls himself voiced by Christoper Plummer (who previously voiced Henri the pigeon in An American Tail) since he was so intimidating and very threatening which makes him one of the best non-Disney villains ever.

The songs were forgettable. The first song in the beginning was surprisingly good, but some of them were forgettable due to their uninspired lyrics.

There were several inconsistencies like the Grand Duke's breath contains magical powers and the rooster can sing while bringing the sun with his cock-a-doodling voice. It's weird, but that's not saying much.

And that's it for Rock-A-Doodle. Is it a weird movie like The Pebble and the Penguin? Yes, but unlike A Troll in Central Park, it's not a bad movie for it's worth watching for the kids. For adults, however, they will have a hard time viewing this.

6/10

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.