This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.
A Major Disappointment
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
View MoreThrough painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
View MoreI am a big fan of animated movies and of animated shows, so I was interested in seeing Rover Dangerfield despite hearing from most people it was bad or mediocre. And mostly, while it is nothing great, I liked it.The film is too short I feel, I personally think the film could have done with an extra 5-8 minutes. The story does have its charms, and the idea really intrigued me, but some scenes are static and move along a little too slowly. Also there are some inconsistencies such as the business with Rocky and Connie about the birthday party that could have been perhaps avoided had the film been longer. The voice acting is mostly good, but I too did not like the farm boy who was annoying and Ned Luke's delivery ranged from just decent to horrid. And some of the characters could have done with more personality, Rover Dangerfield(who had plenty of it), Daisy, Connie and Rocky excepted.Of the voice acting, Rodney Dangerfield definitely steals the show, his voice is very distinctive and the delivery is great, often classic. Of the support cast, Susan Boyd is really quite lovely, likewise with Shawn Southwick, but Sal Landi as Rocky shows the most consistency. The animation mostly is good, with colours that don't look too flat and some of the background art is more than decent. And most of the characters are not too bad to look at either. The music and songs are not timeless classics, nor are they painful. I for one found them memorable and quite nice, especially Never Do it on a Christmas Tree. A vast majority of the time, the script works as well, Dangerfield's asides are funny, witty and perhaps even raunchy at times, even if some of the support characters could have had more to say.In conclusion, not great, not crud. 6/10 Bethany Cox
View MoreI've always had kind of a perverse curiosity about this animated movie starring Roger Dangerfield as an animated dog who, having lived in Las Vegas his whole life, has to learn to exist on a farm. It just seemed like such a moronic idea. Well, it just popped up on Netflix Instant, having never been released on DVD, and I decided that, no matter how awful it was, it's only 73 minutes long. Well, yeah, self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. It's terrible. I mean, the idea of a G rated Rodney Dangerfield should have stopped me in my tracks (okay, Ladybugs wasn't too bad, I guess). What's really weird is that Dangerfield himself was the creative force behind this whole project (he co-wrote the script with Harold Ramis). You'd think he would figure that no child would really want to see a cartoon starring himself. And Dangerfield fans aren't likely to enjoy him in such a toothless incarnation. About as dirty as it gets is when he sings a song about not "doing it" on a Christmas tree. Yes, there's a whole song where he promises his new girlfriend that he would never take a leak on a Christmas tree. Even worse, that's the only song that's even close to memorable, and it is only memorable because of its subject matter. At least Dangerfield isn't nearly as bad a singer as you might imagine, which allows the songs to go by more or less unnoticed. What's really weird is that Dangerfield didn't attempt in the slightest to get some blue jokes past the censors (it was a more innocent time than a decade later, when Shrek tickled us all pink with dick jokes), but the plot often gets absurdly dark. At least two plot points of the film have Rover facing possible execution, once by his original owner's gangster boyfriend (who himself apparently gets whacked in the end) and once by his new farmer master, who catches him with a dead turkey (which wolves killed). Yes, the turkey was just talking in the previous scene (voiced by Simpsons/Futurama regular Tress MacNeille, who voices a few other characters along the way, too), and then it has its neck broken. Rover is slapping its dangling head about, trying to revive it, when the farmer discovers him. Then he holds its head up and tries to do an impression of a turkey. I'm sure no children were traumatized by that. As bad as it is, it's a curio that I can check off my "I can't believe they made this movie" list.
View MoreAlright, this movie doesn't get nearly the recognition it deserves. Everyone keeps saying it's adult oriented and kids won't like it but this was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I watched it at least once a day for months. Granted, it's not one of the best movies ever made, but give it a chance. To me it was a nice change from Disney.
View MoreA street-smart dog from Las Vegas (voiced by Rodney Dangerfield) is dropped off in the middle of nowhere and must adapt to his surroundings and try to get back to his show-girl owner in this smelly little film that is disguised in a thin candy layer. Very adult-oriented flick that tried to bring in the younger audiences fails to entertain and ends up just being a long, whacked cartoon. 2 stars out of 5.
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