Napoleon, as Aventuras de um Cãozinho Valente

This is a charming saga of a young puppy called Muffin who longs for adventure as his wild dog alter ego Napoleon. After he escapes from the Sydney suburbs in a hot air balloon conveniently provided by a children's party, we follow Napoleon into the stunning Australian outback where he has many adventures. Napoleon makes friends along the way including Birdo (a galah) who becomes his guide, as well as encountering enemies such as a demented cat who regards all other mammals as mice to be killed. This is a very useful educational film and morality tale with the journey into the `Red Center' of Australia being a metaphor for Napoleon's exploration into himself. Unless we follow our dreams and examine ourselves we might never know what we are capable of. Napoleon overcomes his fear of water to swim and gains maturity through performing a heroic rescue. Eventually he finds he has been brave and wild all along and can return home a more fulfilled pup.

This was the first Australian live animal movie, where any humans shown are purely secondary, and it makes full use of its country's unique menagerie of creatures. In fact I was reminded of the Walt Disney wild life films of my childhood, though unfortunately this feature lacked the same marketing power. It is good to see the live action of the animals without the animatronics of Babe, and the director (Mario Andreacchio) cleverly makes use of the 64 puppies needed in the making of the film to match the appropriate expressions.

The human voices mainly accord well with their animal counterparts, with some wonderful and famous ones, including Joan Rivers and Barry Humphries' Dame Edna Everage. Anne Louise Lambert (Picnic at Hanging Rock), especially, displays the versatility of her silken voice as a very peeved spider whose web is destroyed by Napoleon; as well as a tremulous earless wallaby terrified of domestic animals; and as an anxious desert mouse. There is some wit in the tale that shows the makers had in mind who else would be watching this film along with its target younger audience, and the songs are pleasant if not exactly memorable.

The perceived scary moments for the very young ones, such as Napoleon's encounters with the deranged cat, may be unfounded as my 2½ year old son watched this with interest without being terrified, but then he has a natural love of animals. Although the dogs struggling in the flood did concern him, a train crash in Thomas the Tank Engine and the snowstorm in ‘Tigger the Movie' caused him more emotional distress. He was as equally confused as Napoleon at the sounds of a wild dog barking that turned out to be a perenti lizard doing animal impressions.

However, the dingo pups are probably portrayed as too cute (witness the tragic mauling to death of Clinton Gage, a nine year old boy, by a couple of wild dogs on Fraser Island in Queensland in May 2001) and perversely the most ferocious looking animal is a domestic cat. A healthy respect for wild animals must be encouraged so that we recognise that we are living in their environment, and that they as well as household pets will behave unpredictably. The senseless culling of animals in retaliation is never an answer. Co-existence is the way forward, not extermination.

In the UK VHS (PAL) copies of this film can be obtained from Britannia Music.

Sometimes serendipity, dumb luck, and channel-surfing really pays off. That's how we found this terrific treat. Look -- in your cable listings or in your video store -- for this Australian-made movie feature. Total delight -- and you can watch it with your mom, your grandmom, your mom-in-law, even your kids in the same room -- or all by yourself if your macho attitudes requires. [Remember "Paulie"? That's right in this category.] But there's none of the "Old Yeller" boo-hoo stuff, so you-and-they'll be okay and sinus-dry when it's over. It's about a city-bred puppy who just knows he has to connect with his wild cousins, the dingoes. So off he goes -- in a balloon-powered basket (okay, we'll admit we worried about the pup up there in midair, especially when the basket was snared by a pointy-nosed commuter train -- but why give away the good stuff?). The photography is gorgeous, but the animal shots (birds, lizards, turtles, dingoes, etc.) are nothing short of incredible!! "Stunning!!" works, too. No people at all to get in the way, either. Try it. If you don't like it, then you'll just have to wait until the movie version of "Hannibal (the Lecter)" arrives.

Kids will love this movie too. If Walt Disney released this film, it would have been a big hit. The camera simply follows a curious puppy as it wanders through the woods encountering other animals. A large bird becomes his guide to this strange environment. There is no real danger, just adventure, with a humor based narrative added to the sound track.

This film has quite a vast range of beautiful landscape, ranging from an Island across from Sydney CBD, to the snowy mountains and outback.

While this movie doesn't have cg mouths or famous voice actors like many of the other animal movies out there, I found the animal interactions cute and the story touching. Even though the director could not manipulate their behaviour and interactions to his story, he did an excellent job creating a script out of the footage available.

From homicidal cats, to singing frogs and birds, I think the movie is definitely a piece of work kids and some adults could appreciate.

The reviews that rate this movie a 1 or 2 star out of 10 don't seem to provide real insight and appear to be more out of prejudice for an aspect they do not like, usually the lack of CG or annoying voice acting. Again this does not necessarily constitute to an automatic 1 out of 10.

The situations, the scenes and the way the movie comes together is great. The script written around the interactions between Muffin and the other animals is clever.

I can't add to the comments. It's a wonderful movie.

However, if you are one of the unfortunates that picked up the NTSC redubbed copy in the states, you are only getting half the movie.

The original Aussie accents, background noises and animal sounds are much nicer in the un-dubbed version.