I never heard of this film before, although I do heard that it was made by the same company Rankin Bass who made the timeless classic "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". So, my father got a DVD copy of this for me and my sibling to watch and we sat through it to see if it would enchant our hearts the same way their later efforts like "Frosty the Snowman", "The Little Drummer Boy", and "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town". Later, we had a decent enough time watching it, but let me remind you all that I do have some problems with it.
The 2D animation is completely standard. It has some beautiful pictures of the Nativity, but it's character animation's kind of awkward with some wonky movements. The characters, though, I thought they were decent. I liked the romance between Bertha and Edward and the main villain Tackelton is very creepy especially his pet raven. The main character Cricket did annoy me in the beginning, but it wasn't Roddy Macdowell's fault. I think he did a fine job voicing him with enough spirit and energy. In fact, the voice acting is pretty decent.
The story isn't that bad at all either, although it does have some depressing moments especially the scene where a sailer captain shoots three animals off-screen which came across as a bit dark for kids. The other problem is that while the songs aren't that bad, there are still too many for me to remember them and slowed the movie down just a bit in some scenes.
Overall, Cricket on the Heart isn't exactly Rankin Bass's strongest work and I haven't read the story from Charles Dickens, but this might be worth watching if all of you can give it a chance.
