3-D animated-family adventure that tells the heart-warming, coming-of-age story of a man and his best-friend, a lovable and fearless dog named, Jock.3-D animated-family adventure that tells the heart-warming, coming-of-age story of a man and his best-friend, a lovable and fearless dog named, Jock.3-D animated-family adventure that tells the heart-warming, coming-of-age story of a man and his best-friend, a lovable and fearless dog named, Jock.
Bryan Adams
- Jock
- (voice)
Donald Sutherland
- Narrator
- (voice)
- …
Helen Hunt
- Jess
- (voice)
Ted Danson
- Pezulu
- (voice)
Desmond Tutu
- Baba
- (voice)
- (as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu)
Mandy Patinkin
- Basil
- (voice)
William Baldwin
- Boatman
- (voice)
Bongani Nxumalo
- Jim Makokel
- (voice)
Theo Landey
- Fitz
- (voice)
Makenzie Hart
- Young Jock
- (voice)
Jason Kennett
- Snarly
- (voice)
Michael De Pinna
- Claude
- (voice)
Anthony Bishop
- George
- (voice)
Robert Hobbs
- Seedling
- (voice)
Dianne Simpson
- Lillian Morris
- (voice)
Sylvaine Strike
- Polly
- (voice)
Michael Richard
- Mr. Morris
- (voice)
Rose Emanuel
- Julian
- (voice)
Featured reviews
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.
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.
(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. .
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. .
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.
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.
After reading an extensive amount of reviews which largely reflects "Jock of the bushveld" in a negative light, I decided to finally make some time to watch it for myself to formulate my own opinion. To my surprise I had to dig deep within to try to endure watching more than 10 minutes of this "movie" at a time. I write this review with the intention of briefly discussing the failures of this movie, hence if all you seek is an answer to the question "Should I even bother watching this movie" then there is no need to read further, the simple answer is "NO".
With that being said, I cannot for the life of me begin to understand how such a movie was released "on the big screen". Everybody that paid to watch this movie should rightfully be given their money back. This movie was an absolute disgrace to our South African Animation Industry. In all honesty, I have seen far better animation in low budget daytime kiddies shows. It seems as if the creators of this movie were so hell bent on making money from people actually paying to watch it that they didn't even care about the quality of this film.
I find it extremely hard to believe that it took them 5 years to come up with THIS. The character designs were extremely and painfully weak and I found it impossible to create a connection with any of the characters, the emotions that the characters displayed lacked any sort of actual human qualities. I can only laugh at the poor character models in this movie. The facial expressions could be described as mediocre at best as they were highly unconvincing, poorly timed and extremely amateur.
To my absolute astonishment, there were scenes in the movie where the characters clashed with the props. For example there was a scene where Fitz's hand went right through the bar stool. This is probably the most unacceptable error which an animator can make. Why didn't anybody on the team spot these errors and take a few minutes to fix it. There was also a scene where the chicken's feet were floating. Once again, a few minutes are all it would have taken to fix these small but detrimental errors.
The animation was disappointing in every sense of the word. However the award for worst animated character ever goes to the movie's main human character, Fitz. His motions and reactions were so unnatural throughout the entire movie. Let's take one scene out of the movie. Let's use the scene where they are crossing the river and Fitz shoots the crocodile. It is almost as if his body parts are fighting with each other. His reaction and movement is completely unnatural, unrealistic and so poorly timed. I have never in my entire life seen a human move or react like this guy. There is absolutely no fluidity in the animation. I would love to know how much reference was actually used in this film. The way in which he handles his pistol and his recovery after he shoots the crocodile is completely unbelievable and appears to have been animated by a person or multiple people that have minimal(if any) knowledge on animation. There were a few scenes were the camera angles were chosen correctly to give the audience that dramatic effect. However majority of the film the camera seems to be telling a completely different story as it should have. Everything needs to blend together in a scene to give the audience the desired effect and to get that part of the story across. Unfortunately a good camera angle mixed with bad animation (for example) completely ruins everything.
5 years? Really? The supposedly "dramatic" fight scene between Jock, his mother and the leopard could have been so much better and so much more effective. Here's what you (the creators) should have done. You'll (the creators) should have taken 10 minutes out of your "busy" day and watched the scene from The Lion King where Simba fights Scar and reclaims what is rightfully his. And I can guarantee you that watching those 10 minutes would have highly increased the value of this scene. While I am on the topic of reference, you'll should have also taken some time to watch the part where Mufasa dies and Simba is all alone with nobody to hear his desperate cries for help. Had you'll examined this scene and question as to why this scene evoked so much empathy in the audience and used that knowledge to better the Jocks Mother Dies scene, perhaps it wouldn't have been so easy for the audience to brush off such a vital moment in Jock's life. These are just 2 examples from a single movie that could have highly increased the overall quality of Jock. Can you'll (the creators) imagine the possibility had you'll taken a little more time in those 5 years to focus on the audience and how reaction to the film. We have all come to know who Bryan Adams is, especially due to his brilliant music in animated films. However just because his music or voice is featured in a movie isn't enough to make the movie good. Sadly not even the voice of Bryan Adams could save this train from derailing. There is something that could have been changed in every scene of this movie, be it minor or major, that would have made this movie a part of South African history and not a part that we'd rather forget. This movie could be compared to Apartheid, it happened, it was extremely horrible, now let's all try to put it behind us and move on with our lives.
With that being said, I cannot for the life of me begin to understand how such a movie was released "on the big screen". Everybody that paid to watch this movie should rightfully be given their money back. This movie was an absolute disgrace to our South African Animation Industry. In all honesty, I have seen far better animation in low budget daytime kiddies shows. It seems as if the creators of this movie were so hell bent on making money from people actually paying to watch it that they didn't even care about the quality of this film.
I find it extremely hard to believe that it took them 5 years to come up with THIS. The character designs were extremely and painfully weak and I found it impossible to create a connection with any of the characters, the emotions that the characters displayed lacked any sort of actual human qualities. I can only laugh at the poor character models in this movie. The facial expressions could be described as mediocre at best as they were highly unconvincing, poorly timed and extremely amateur.
To my absolute astonishment, there were scenes in the movie where the characters clashed with the props. For example there was a scene where Fitz's hand went right through the bar stool. This is probably the most unacceptable error which an animator can make. Why didn't anybody on the team spot these errors and take a few minutes to fix it. There was also a scene where the chicken's feet were floating. Once again, a few minutes are all it would have taken to fix these small but detrimental errors.
The animation was disappointing in every sense of the word. However the award for worst animated character ever goes to the movie's main human character, Fitz. His motions and reactions were so unnatural throughout the entire movie. Let's take one scene out of the movie. Let's use the scene where they are crossing the river and Fitz shoots the crocodile. It is almost as if his body parts are fighting with each other. His reaction and movement is completely unnatural, unrealistic and so poorly timed. I have never in my entire life seen a human move or react like this guy. There is absolutely no fluidity in the animation. I would love to know how much reference was actually used in this film. The way in which he handles his pistol and his recovery after he shoots the crocodile is completely unbelievable and appears to have been animated by a person or multiple people that have minimal(if any) knowledge on animation. There were a few scenes were the camera angles were chosen correctly to give the audience that dramatic effect. However majority of the film the camera seems to be telling a completely different story as it should have. Everything needs to blend together in a scene to give the audience the desired effect and to get that part of the story across. Unfortunately a good camera angle mixed with bad animation (for example) completely ruins everything.
5 years? Really? The supposedly "dramatic" fight scene between Jock, his mother and the leopard could have been so much better and so much more effective. Here's what you (the creators) should have done. You'll (the creators) should have taken 10 minutes out of your "busy" day and watched the scene from The Lion King where Simba fights Scar and reclaims what is rightfully his. And I can guarantee you that watching those 10 minutes would have highly increased the value of this scene. While I am on the topic of reference, you'll should have also taken some time to watch the part where Mufasa dies and Simba is all alone with nobody to hear his desperate cries for help. Had you'll examined this scene and question as to why this scene evoked so much empathy in the audience and used that knowledge to better the Jocks Mother Dies scene, perhaps it wouldn't have been so easy for the audience to brush off such a vital moment in Jock's life. These are just 2 examples from a single movie that could have highly increased the overall quality of Jock. Can you'll (the creators) imagine the possibility had you'll taken a little more time in those 5 years to focus on the audience and how reaction to the film. We have all come to know who Bryan Adams is, especially due to his brilliant music in animated films. However just because his music or voice is featured in a movie isn't enough to make the movie good. Sadly not even the voice of Bryan Adams could save this train from derailing. There is something that could have been changed in every scene of this movie, be it minor or major, that would have made this movie a part of South African history and not a part that we'd rather forget. This movie could be compared to Apartheid, it happened, it was extremely horrible, now let's all try to put it behind us and move on with our lives.
Jock is an iconic South African story. It has all the right values of courage, bravery, loyalty and adventure to make it a must watch for young kids. Set in the bushveld of South Africa in the time of the Gold Rush in the late 1800's, the characters are from all over the world. They were in a strange land with wild animals and other adversities , seeking their fame and fortune. the story picks up on the adventures of Jock, the runt of the litter and the Transport rider who is gifted him by the local Zulu Chief. The technical quality is not as consistent as it might be but children are not critical like adults and so almost universally seem to enjoy watching this heart warming film. There is good music and the voices of Bryan Adams, Donald Sutherland, Bishop Tutu and Helen Hunt make for a good enough movie for all to watch.
Did you know
- TriviaThe character of Jock, his antics, and the life lessons of the book are so famous and widely-known in South Africa, that statues are routinely erected in his honor and the first private lodge in Africa's wildlife reserve - Kruger National Park - bears his name.
- ConnectionsVersion of Jock le meilleur chien du monde (1986)
- How long is Jock the Hero Dog?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $2,008,173
- Runtime
- 1h 29m(89 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
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