I didn’t think this was possible but it happened. It finally
happened. I saw a movie, an animated kids movie mind you that was worse than The Emoji Movie.
If you read my thoughts on that film, I was pretty lenient saying
that while it wasn’t good I didn’t think it was all out bad. There are worse
animated films out there and sure enough Rock
Dog is one of them. You thought The
Emoji Movie sounded ridiculous, just listening to the title Rock Dog has you wondering if that title
was meant for a children’s picture book. In actuality the movie is based off a Chinese
graphic novel Tibetan Dog, if there
was something interesting they wanted to show from the source material, I
didn’t see it. Actually I take it back, the teaser while silly-looking,
appeared promising. It presented a stellar cast and one the directors of Toy Story 2.
I went in expecting something only to be sorely mistaken. I
felt that I had wasted my time sitting in front of the screen, I could count how many times my eyelids were
close to drooping, and pulling out my phone on more than one occasion. That’s
how bad this movie is. The Emoji Movie
may have been poorly executed but I stayed invested from beginning, middle, and
end with no regrets.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, what’s the story of this film
you might ask? Well it’s everything done from Kung Fu Panda, Zootopia, Sing!,(anthropomorphic animals except
there is both singing and utilizing an ancient fighting style with mystic
properties), Happy
Feet (a musical where a father figure isn’t keen on his son’s preferred
talent), Once (guy with a guitar who loves music and records a hit song) and The Big Lebowski. You
heard me right this film tries to be The
Big Lebowski!!!!!!! Don’t believe me, the narrator in both films are played
by Sam Elliot who addresses the audience! Oh but it gets better!
Since the movie is a musical (whenever it remembers) the name of this narrator
is Fleetwood Yak. Get it?
A Tibetan Mastiff named Khampha (J.K. Simmons) protects a sheep village
from Linnux (Lewis Black) and his hungry wolf pack with his Dragon Ball-like powers,
but his son Bodi (Luke Wilson) wants to be a musician. His father disapproves of
this and does The Little Mermaid 3
stupid method of banning music. That doesn’t last as he gives Bodi a chance and
lets him travel to the city and meet music legend Angus Scattergood (Eddie
Izzard). Riff (Kenan Thompson), notices Bodi leave and alerts his boss Linnux
prompting a plan to use Bodi as a means to invade the sheep village.
The cast are wasted with Simmons and voice actress Mae
Whitman appearing to be the only ones giving it their all. Even with the voice
work the characters are no better; Bodi who is supposed to be this naïve dreamer
is dumb as a doornail and Angus is so unlikable that his redemptive moment is
undeserving. Everyone else is bland, two-dimensional, and forgettable. Even the
animation is unimpressive with every animal in either the sheep village or city
the animals all look the same. None of the jokes landed with the wolves
provided minimal chuckles than anyone else.
The movie shifts from genre to genre that I kept forgetting what
movie it’s supposed to be. It tries to
be action-packed like Kung Fu Panda
or some anime show, but like Fantastic
Four (2015) there’s barely any action of Khampa or Bodi using their powers.
Then it shifts to being a musical about a youngster wanting to making it big with their music talent like Singing In the Rain or La La
Land with the whole magic element kicked to the side until the last half
reminding the film of the action element only to end on a musical number.
Rock Dog is simply
boring and the worst part is that looking at the trailer, promotional
work and images this could have made for an average film. For that
reason, pains me to say that Rock Dog
is one of the worst animated films of the year.
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