“Rock-A-Doodle” was officially released in 1991. (same year The Rocketeer came out) It was a critical and commercial failure damaging Don Bluth’s reputation as a respected filmmaker. The first major setback in Mr. Bluth’s career, followed by “A Troll in Central Park,” “The Pebble and the Penguin” & “Titan A.E.” Oh how the mighty have fallen! As I’ve mentioned on my previous reviews of “Mac and Me” & “Tank Girl,” I’ve accepted a request to review 20 films related to MGM’s box office failures in response to Amazon Prime taking full responsibility of the company after buying it for approximately $8.45 billion. If you wanna check out my reviews on the aforementioned films minus Don’s work, feel free to read ’em. I also restructured previous articles based on MGM’s flops.
It doesn’t matter if SPOILERS are listed. This movie is horrendously bad.
Stable & Unstable Aspects
Stable: The Animation is the only good thing. A huge waste of a legendary animator’s talent.
Glen Campbell, Eddie Deezen (Mandark from Dexter’s Lab) & Christopher Plummer did a fair job for their respective voiceover performances.
Unstable: Don Bluth made a big boo not giving a crud to make an emotional fun musical adventure.
Unlike “An American Tail” & Anastasia,” not a single song is memorable.
Chanticleer, (based on Elvis Pressley) is not the main character, it’s Edmond. I know he’s just a little boy, but he’s annoying as heck! It’s not the kid’s fault for acting like a whiny brat, I blame Don’s bad direction and writing.
Besides, Edmond I didn’t care about every single character.
I didn’t laugh at every joke. That’s bad folks.
When Patou (a basset hound) has a hard time tying his shoes, he delivers an awful pun, “I’m tryin’ to tie these doggone shoes.” The first joke in the movie, indicates what you’re about to see, is gonna be one heck of a cringefest lacking a compelling story, three-dimensional characters etc.
Although Edmond accidentally summoned The Grand Duke by touching a picture of him on a page, so how the actual fudge nugget did Patou and the rest of the book’s inhabitants get magically transported to the real-world? In the words of Deadpool. “Well, that’s just lazy writing.” Gonna have to Triple Down this con for breaking my “Suspension of Disbelief.”
Chanticleer has the ability to summon the sun. In the beginning, he didn’t summon it. Doesn’t make sense. The sky automatically turns into a dark and stormy night.
Another issue spotted, where are Edmond’s family and the rest of the real-world population? They’re never shown when our world became animated.
Remember that one part with The Grand Duke giving one of his lackies a pair of sunglasses? Why didn’t he and the others wear sunglasses so they can take advantage of the animals?
The Animals at the barn never bother to relocate using furniture as a canoe to find a safer environment.
A frog said, “You boys are dead meat!” Ugh! Nobody uses dead meat anymore! It’s a relic from the 80s.
There’s a random scene with Edmond literally running in his mind. Ugh! I’d rather watch “Inception” than this piece of cow dung! The more I watch, the more I question my sanity.
Towards the end, Edmond wakes up, realizing it was all a dream. Sounds an awful lot like “The Wizard of Oz.” The movie pulls a one-eighty with Edmond transported to the book’s world by touching it. Ignoring the fact, you can only touch a character on a picture. The last scene abruptly ends as it dissolves to the end credits. The Ending from “American Psycho” is more thought-provoking than this nonsensical waste of space!
A Blue Screen looks obviously fake with Edmond (back to normal) in the animated world.
The Final Verdict: F, FOR FAKER!
Reminder, Rock-A-Doodle is the first major setback in Don Bluth’s career. It’s sad he never made another movie after Titan A.E. tanked at the box office alongside his production company Fox Animation Studios. If you wanna watch a better animated film about barn animals, I highly recommend “Barnyard.”
Which MGM box office bomb should I review next? Please leave a comment and I’ll respond back.
Nickthemoviecritic.com 