Cyberknight Masao Kawata
This film starts with a vain and spoiled male dog, the title Romeo, singing and dancing, in a very sexist performance, with bitches kissing him like he was a king. The horrible pop song lasts much longer than it should and, when it's over, we find out that it was a tale of said dog about how his life was, before he was kicked out by his owners. After such a nasty presentation of the character, it's absolutely impossible to sympathise with him. Instead of been kicked out, he should've been "put to sleep"...The rest of the plot is just dumb. Romeo is attacked by a gang of stray dogs (plus a cat and a rat), which start fighting each other for no good reason, instead of beating the hell out of Romeo. Romeo becomes an Eddie-Scissorhands-like and trims the dogs, for no reason, making them his friends (I wondered where he kept those scissors hidden). They decide to start a business of dog hair cut, when Romeo discovers they have to pay (with bones, the currency) for "protection" to a mobster. Romeo refuses to pay, fights the mob member and... nothing really happens (clearly, the kingpin is not a Corleone). Romeo meets a bitch on a roof top (yes, those dogs climb up house roofs like cats, and sing horrible pop songs), harasses her and is (obviously) ditched. More nonsense follows until an animal control team shows up and tries to arrest all the strays. For no clear reason, Romeo decides to save the kingpin from being captured, what eventually leads him to become the roof-top-singing bitch's "dogfriend". The end (more or less, keep reading).The plot makes little sense, with lots happening for weak or no reason and, worse, going to absurd and/or stupid directions. It is about an hour and a half long, with about half of that filled with horrible musical performances (awful pop songs with ridiculous choreography).And when you think the musical acts are the worst part of the film, you just find out that it's also a comedy! The visual jokes are all kitschy, forced and embarrassing, like when the kingpin screams to Romeo, the camera zooms out to show the planet Earth, and everything is distorted by the boom wave of his voice (yeah, sound waves in space... pure comedy...)Technically, the film is also a disaster. The animation is awkward, like in the "ReBoot" computer animated television series, but that was in 1994, one year before "Toy Story". To simplify the animation, I guess, there is a lot of close-ups of the characters (so, there is a lot less to animate and render). Actually, the fourth wall is put down a lot, with Romeo talking to the camera, annoyingly. Movements disregard gravity, mass, momentum (like the Velociraptors of the first "Jurassic Park", they also didn't know the meaning of mass or gravity) and friction, so it's not seldom to see characters "sliding" on the landscape. And when it reaches "The End", and you think nothing else could make it worse, the credits roll and you are presented with "deleted footage", like in the credits of a Jackie Chan film, except that they manage to be even less funny than the original scenes! They are like bad jokes that someone (that didn't "get" them) makes worse by trying to explain them, with more unfunny jokes...It's absolutely unbelievable that this is a Disney production. I mean, after rising from the dead by the end of the 20th century, Disney became one of the biggest producers of cinematographic content of the beginning of the 21st century, eventually engulfing Pixar and acquiring the "Star Wars" franchise. When I saw the 3D CGI castle and heard Disney's theme song, I thought it was some kind of joke, I really expected some character would jump up screaming "gotcha!", but no one did, it is, indeed, a Disney production! This film is as embarrassing as those anti-Nazi propaganda films Disney produced during WWII, except this one has no war to blame for its failure. I simply cannot understand how this has an IMDb score above 5, as it is as bad (or maybe even worse) as other computer animated disaster, like "Plumiferos" (2010).
TheLittleSongbird
Roadside Romeo does indeed start in a very captivating way. I liked the idea and the film does start very strongly with quite a stirring opening scene. But overall, it just didn't do it for me, just too bland and hackneyed. Granted, the animation is pretty good, not outstanding but the backgrounds and sceneries were at least striking. Also Javed Jaffrey is a lot of fun here. However, the writing is sadly awful on the whole, while the story is too hackneyed and predictable. Then there is the music, it was the same with the singing, it got too much and became distracting. Jaffrey aside, the remainder of the voice work is inconsistent, ranging from so-so to barely adequate. I'm sorry to say I didn't really feel anything for the characters, they were dull mostly or annoying. The pacing started off great, almost riveting, but when the story meandered just before the halfway mark the pace dragged until the final result was as limp as a bad hair day. In conclusion, started off promisingly but lost its momentum making it forgettable and altogether very unexceptional film. 4/10 Bethany Cox
tusharvyas15041987
In every sense one is glad Indian animation has come such a long way. It would be wrong to say that so far we have been doing an inferior job in comparison to our Hollywood counterparts. However the quality hasn't been at par. With Roadside Romeo, Indian animation films have taken a giant leap forward and kudos to Yash Raj Films and Walt Disney Studios for being the one to raise the bar up by many notches.Bottom line is the fact that Roadside Romeo is ultimately a movie that has stemmed from the land of masala films, so expecting anything different is sheer blasphemy. The film has lovers, a villain and great humor - the ultimate essentials for a Bollywood caper. But then being animated and convincing is what whisks this film away from clutches of the inane Bollywood film monster.Romeo (Saif Ali Khan) the quintessential lover dog is thrown onto the streets, where he meets newly found best mutts. Soon enough he bumps into the love of his life, Laila (Kareena) who happens to be a nightclub performer. Besides falling in love, the biggest mistake Romeo commits is having rubbed Charlie Anna (Javed Jaffrey) the wrong way. With a villain to combat and love to win over, the film is all Romeo and tons of heart.One can't stop gushing over the fact that Yash Raj Films and Disney have brought to India what can be called India's first world class animation film. It's not perfect, but nonetheless still great. Had the movie been made into a live Acton one, perhaps it would not have worked. Even story-wise the film is extremely light. But it is exactly these aspects that make Roadside Romeo lovable. The film is entertaining, funny and light. There is little that your mind needs to work on and it's escapism at its best.
