Home on the Range (2004) Reviews

• Cows aren't funny

  mjaxelrad2004-04-06

  This is the most dispiriting Disney release since the dark days of the Black Cauldron. The laughs were strained and ill-timed. While the string of quality Disney movies carefully crafted humor aimed at adults as well as children, this one relied almost exclusively on belch jokes and inappropriate (not to mention inane) sexual innuendo. Seemingly undecided whether it was to be Emperor's-New-Groove-goes-country or South-Park-in-the-West, it miserably fails its audience both young and old. While Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly struggle in vain to carry the film with some attention to character, it never ceases to amaze that Roseanne -- purportedly a former stand-up comic -- has such leaden delivery and a complete lack of comic timing. Obviously, unless she is bellowing at another character, there is simply no way that her talented co-stars can create any rapport. From her first words on screen, Roseanne sinks this movie like a stone. A total waste of some talented co-stars. Please, please, let this be the final death rattle of the Eisner era. It is bad enough that Michael Eisner has ruined practically every character through badly-thought-out and badly-realized straight-to-video sequels, but to completely destroy the bedrock of the Disney empire -- animated theatrical releases -- is unforgiveable. This one only gets a 2 out of 10.

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• An absolute disgrace

  Atreyu_II2007-08-07

  The 44th animated Disney "classic" is just one among other good examples of how Disney went downhill during these last years. It's sad to see how Disney (which made so many timeless classics) declined that much. What happened to the traditional hand-drawn classics? All this CGI stuff only ruined Disney! "Home On The Range" isn't the worst Disney movie ever, but it is side by side with their worst movies. This movie has lots of irritating moments, but the worst of all is a scene in a bar - one of the most ridiculous scenes in a movie! The "humor" of this movie isn't the classic humor which is really funny. What we see here is nothing but annoying, unconventional and pointless modern humor. This movie has some nice backgrounds of the Old West, but only a few. The characters are very ugly in general and so terribly designed that it's impossible not to feel annoyed by them. Stupid situations, terrible designs, very low picture quality, awful animation and boring songs are more weak points of this disgrace. The characters in general are annoying. The only characters I liked were the little yellow birds, the little pigs and Rusty the Dog. But even these characters can't be compared with the beloved and legendary Disney characters of the great classics from the past.

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• Ineffective, almost humourless, and not so well written Disney fare

  Electrified_Voltage2009-01-07

  It has been nearly five years since the release of this recent traditionally animated Disney flick, made in a CGI-dominated time, and I definitely didn't even hear about it at the time of its release. It clearly didn't turn out to be a box office smash, which is probably why I never heard about it (unlike "The Incredibles", the hugely successful CGI-animated feature released the same year), and I don't think I knew about it until I saw it mentioned in a book about animated films a couple years ago. After seeing "Home on the Range", I can definitely see why it tanked. In the old west, Maggie, Mrs. Calloway, and Grace are three cows, all with very different traits, who live on a dairy farm in Nebraska called Patch of Heaven, owned by an elderly widow named Pearl Gesner. Pearl owes a lot of money, which she unfortunately can't pay, so it appears she will soon lose her farm, and it will be auctioned off! So, the three cows decide to set out to try and save their home. They must track down an outlaw, a cattle rustler named Alameda Slim, who uses a false identity to claim many properties in the state, and hypnotizes cows with his yodeling! On their adventure, they meet others on the same mission, to try and stop Alameda Slim, and due to the different traits of the three cows, they don't always get along, with conflict between Maggie and Mrs. Calloway, which obviously won't make it easier! Others have already mentioned the lacklustre plot of this film, and I'm going to have to agree wholeheartedly. The plot pretty much completely failed to interest me, since it's very simple and forgettable, and the real lack of humour doesn't help. I only rarely found amusing moments, and kept a straight face for almost the entire thing. For example, there's some weak slapstick, which may appeal to kids, but probably not many others. I found that the funniest parts involved Alameda Slim's dimwitted nephews, parts such as them not being able to recognise their uncle after they've seen him put his simple disguise on, but they are very minor characters. Not only is the plot forgettable, so are the gags and most of the characters. Basically, the film was put together fairly simply, and probably could have been more focused. I found myself indifferent to pretty much everything about it, and I'm sure I'm not alone. It looks like this film marked the end of a very long era, the era of traditionally animated theatrical Disney movies, which began in 1937 with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and went on with the company long after Walt Disney's death in 1966. Through those decades, so many classics were made in the franchise, so it's unfortunate that they couldn't finish with a much more noteworthy picture. Instead, they finished with a dull one, one which is probably much more appealing to kids than adults, unlike probably most of them, which can be fun for all ages. "Home on the Range" reminds me a lot of "Rock-A-Doodle", a 1991 animated film from Don Bluth, and not one of his more popular efforts. Both are lacklustre animated films with anthropomorphic animals, ones which are basically for the kids, and I've personally found to be very unmemorable.

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• Nice visuals, otherwise unexceptional

  florafairy2004-04-11

  While the film wasn't a total dud a la "Treasure Planet," it's certainly no "Little Mermaid," or even "Emperor's New Groove," which I consider the best of the latest crop of cartoons for its hip sensibility. "Home on the Range" suffers from an unoriginal and unfunny script, although it is not tediously poor or Saturday-morning-cartoon simple. To begin, there is an overabundance of plastic-playset ready characters (literally a whole farm full): the trio of bounty-hunting heifers played by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly; the yodeling cattle rustler Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) and his three bumbling nephews; the wannabe-hero steed Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr-- who ok'ed that name?); two lascivious bulls; a buffalo bouncer; a peg-legged jackrabbit; and a whole farmyard of pigs, chickens, a goose, and a surly goat. Oh, and Steve Buscemi shows up too, as a caricature of himself in a purple suit and a pencil moustache. Estelle Harris and Patrick Warburton (so memorable in "Toy Story 2" and "Groove," respectively), had brief cameos as well. There's no time for any kind of character development (not even with a sacred Disney "I Want" song), and the thinnest of premises has the cows hunting for Slim in time to get the reward money to save their farm. I was surprised not by the simplicity but by the unnecessary, unfunny bawdiness of the script (the movie opens with a shot of the Barr cow's ample udders, with her voiceover dryly remarking "Yep, they're real. Quit staring." Crossdressing, pee, and fat man jokes follow.) Alan Menken wrote a few snappy but unmemorable tunes (none of which are sung by the characters, but by the likes of Bonnie Raitt and k.d. lang) and a Coplandesque score. The film redeems itself in its art direction, which bursts with Disney color and retro UPA-style angularity. Especially in the opening scenes, a multiplane effect is used to further flatten, rather than deepen, this storybook world. It's an interesting and visually engaging concept that works well for the story. Backgrounds are intricately detailed with drybrush effects that call to mind "Sleeping Beauty;" if that film's art director, Eyvind Earle, had been called upon to paint the rocks and buttes of the American desert, it would have looked very much like this. It's quite stunning, actually, and the best art direction since 1996's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I especially appreciated a background detail in the town scene: one of the buildings was actually only a facade, held up by supports like on a backlot Western set. Similarly, sooner or later, not just critics but parents too will demand the Disney animated features to show that they have something behind that venerable name. "Home on the Range" will tide us over for now, but a renaissance of Disney is getting to be overdue. The Disney animation department (what's left of it), like it or not, needs to take a cue from Pixar and strive for family-friendly originality if they hope to maintain the integrity of the brand. ***

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• well...

  jackster122008-08-31

  I'm typing this as the movie is playing on DVD. And the kids seem to like watching it. But then, they're young and animation appeals in general. Still, we try to watch with them... and I happen to love animation myself, having some background in cartoon-drawing. Everything Pixar? Fantastic. Old Disney? Sure, serve it up. Along with the Looney Tunes, old Tom & Jerry, etc. This, though, is a sleepwalk of a feature in so many ways. Not in the animation, which isn't bad (though not much special, in context of what's out there). Nor in the music, which is decent enough. The writing, however, is horrible. I can't imagine anyone characterizing this dialogue as "funny"... it's an endless stream of clichés. And the story line, while thin at the core, is unnecessarily complicated at the fringes. The twists don't feel like twists. They feel like fumbling shortcuts used to navigate a nest of tangled details. I find myself astounded at how (a) such a venerable studio as Disney gets behind this kind of project (b) how they manage to attract so much high-profile voice talent and (c) how those actors stomach saying these lines, given that every one of them has acted in much better stuff than this pap. I guess a paycheck helps. But still, ultimately this is a movie that shouldn't have been made. P.S. One other thing... one can't help but feel like this is one of those animation movies meant to appeal to a demographic. Like, say, the vast swath of middle America that loves country music. It's worth noting that the other failed animated movies of recent years have all attempted to do the same kind of feel-good, blatant targeting. Brother Bear... Fox and the Hound 2... there are others I can't think of at the moment. Why does it fail? First, because the movies by nature end up offering stereotypes of the demographic they're targeting. Second, because they end up being style over substance. The plot is just a vehicle to deliver the caricature. And last, because it's ridiculous to assume that great story lines don't transcend the cultural distinctions. Do the studio marketers really think, for instance, that the Nascar set and Manhattan kids alike can't "get" Monsters Inc or Toy Story on a shared level? The only movie of recent years that seemed to beat that rap was "Cars." And that was because it was a good story, not stuck in being pedantic or playing to any one crowd.

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