Ed's Review Dot Com

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation,

Charles Nelson Reilly, Lacey Chabert, Joseph Ashton, Raphael Sbarge, Cathy Cavadini, Christopher Plummer, Susan Silo, Bronson Pinchot, James Belushi, Lindsay Schnebly

It’s only two days till Christmas and the largest order for toys ever has arrived in Toyland where the factory to build the toys for Santa exists. Mean old Barnaby (Christopher Plummer) is a scrooge like old man who hates Christmas and has plans to shut it down for good. The characters from Mother Goose live in Toyland, and with the help of Jack and Jill (Joseph Ashton and Lacey Chabert) and Humpty Dumpty (Charles Nelson Reilly) they set out to defeat Barnaby and keep the toy factory open.

This MGM animation release was intended for a theatrical run, but due to the failure of All Dogs Go to Heaven, it was determined instead to send this straight to video. Unfortunately Disney did a live action version of this story that flopped rather historically. Perhaps the worst flop in Walt’s history, this didn’t do too well. I tried watching the Disney version several times, and found it truly difficult to watch. Fortunately, this animated telling of the story is really well done. Much more interesting than the Disney one, the animation is really good, and the story is much more interesting. I felt that this was really well done, and I get the story a lot better than I ever did from the other version. This story is clear and concise, and I see what they were going for. Barnaby is a great villain is who just hates toys. Very well drawn and concisely told, this is a good version to watch if you’d really like to watch a story of Mother Goose’s characters come to life.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation

Ernest Borgnine, Dom DeLuise, Sheena Easton, Taylor Emerson, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles Nelson Reilly, Steven Weber

The “All Dogs” team returns with Belladonna (Bebe Neuwirth) an evil witch of a dog that has an whistle that will control all the dogs and force them to steal Christmas.  She’s teamed up with Carface (Ernest Borgnine) and Charlie and Itchy are out to convince Carface to fight Belladonna.  They determine the best way is to pretend to be ghosts and haunt Carface as the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future and change his heart.  We find out that Carface was badly treated as a puppy and has hated Christmas ever since.  Can Belladonna be defeated before midnight on Christmas Eve and Christmas saved?

This is TV animation and is typical of the “All Dogs” films.  Still, kids are going to enjoy the cartoons and watching the dogs, and it’s not really scary anymore than most TV’s.  But if your dog suddenly has his eyes start turning green and spinning in spirals, watch out.  He’s under Belladonna’s control.  Not a great story for grown ups (unless you’re a big fan of Saturday Morning cartoons of your youth) but it’s a good movie to entertain the kids with, and a decent revision of A Christmas Carol even though it’s changed in many ways.  The heart of the story is still there.   Hint though:  If you’re thinking of trying to destroy Christmas and stop it once and for all,  give it up.  It seems only the Taliban can do that.  Nobody else has even come close to pulling it off.  Not the grinch, not the martians, and certainly not Belladonna!  🙂