Gavin Cresswell (gavin-thelordofthefu-48-460297)
I've been told by a lot of people that this movie is the first of the mediocre entries (except Anastasia) in the early/late 90s that caused Don Bluth's career to go downhill, but as for me, I think I actually found this along with The Pebble and the Penguin to be very decent. Why? Well, I will admit, the story was weird and predictable and has a lot of flaws that went nowhere despite it being supposedly charming. The characters were good. Edmund was okay, but nothing special, Chanticleer and the others were very decent, but the Grand Duke of Owls' henchman and the fox guy that wants some money for using Chanticleer to sing for the audiences were not that interesting. I think that the best character throughout the whole movie is the Grand Duke of Owls himself voiced by Christoper Plummer (who previously voiced Henri the pigeon in An American Tail) since he was so intimidating and very threatening which makes him one of the best non-Disney villains ever.The songs were forgettable. The first song in the beginning was surprisingly good, but some of them were forgettable due to their uninspired lyrics.There were several inconsistencies like the Grand Duke's breath contains magical powers and the rooster can sing while bringing the sun with his cock-a-doodling voice. It's weird, but that's not saying much.And that's it for Rock-A-Doodle. Is it a weird movie like The Pebble and the Penguin? Yes, but unlike A Troll in Central Park, it's not a bad movie for it's worth watching for the kids. For adults, however, they will have a hard time viewing this.6/10
ndunsmo
You know, for over a year after I saw this for the first time, I pretty much convinced myself that this movie was actually good, and no, it isn't. It is a terrible mess of a film with poorly-written characters, a contrived plot and... to be honest... that's actually why I like it.If you go into this movie knowing how poorly contrived it is, you will actually get a lot of enjoyment out of it. It starts off with a very interesting premise, one that made it worth questioning the immediately contradiction of its plot that wasted no time before rearing its ugly head, but the minute Edmond is introduced to the whole thing it becomes laugh-out-loud hilarious! The animations are very nice, the Grand Duke sometimes looking like something out of an 80's Bluth film and the good guy songs are nice to listen to (Which is why it's a shame Phil Harris talks over most of them) but all in all, this is a movie that's enjoyable simply because of how bad it is. The minute Edmond enters the story and we get quite possibly one of the strangest team-ups ever, it's impossible to take the movie seriously in the slightest.It's kind of a shame, though, as this movie did have a lot of promise. The characters Peepers and Edmond both have speech impediments which could have made for great development between the two, but no, we get none of that. Maybe if Pinky had been the main villain and the animals were looking for Chanticleer for a, well, less selfish reason than saving their own hides, we could have still gotten a great entertaining movie with a much better message of acceptance. Maybe instead of the whole "owls threatening to eat them" thing, they could have sought out Chanticleer because without him, productivity on the farm would decrease or something like that.Still, for what it is, it's unintentionally hilarious and that's why it passed in my eyes. Still, it's a shame the writers clearly weren't taking it seriously enough otherwise it could have been really good.
JTurner82
I don't know what Don Bluth was thinking when he made this silly, nonsensical animated musical about a singing rooster, but I know what I'm thinking: "Why?" ROCK-A-DOODLE isn't as depressing or dreary as Bluth's previous ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN, but it's not much better.The film tells the story of Chanticleer, a barnyard rooster with a golden voice whose crooning -- sorry, crowing -- makes the sun rise every day. One morning, however, Chanticleer is attacked by a bully rooster; in the process he neglects his crowing duties and the sun comes up anyway. After being laughed at by his friends, the disgraced rooster heads off to the city. Then it starts to rain, and before long, all the animals are terrorized by both floods and the evil Grand Duke of Owls, who, it turns out, actually set up the whole thing simply because he dislikes the sun. In arguably one of the few memorable lines this movie offers, he also sneers, "I positively LOATHE rock and roll."Naturally, the animals head off to the city to find Chanticleer, who, by this point, has become a famous star dubbed "the King," with a greedy manager and a reluctant girlfriend, Goldie. If the animals can bring Chanticleer back to the farm, the sun will once again rise and the floods will stop. To prevent this, the Duke sends his clumsy (and unfortunately not very funny) nephew, Hunch (whose vocabulary mostly consists of rhyming with the word "annihilation") after the animals.The plot, such as it is, doesn't make the least amount of sense and is likely to baffle even the most intelligent of grown-ups. Working against ROCK-A-DOODLE as a whole, however, is the haphazard and confusing execution. It also suffers from the problem of a major identity crisis: on one hand it tries to be a simplistic fairy tale, on the other it attempts to be a musical parody of Elvis (Chanticleer's rock star persona and his songs are very closely modeled after the legendary singer, from the slick hairdo to the deep voice and the mannerisms). However, it ultimately comes across as a hodgepodge of ideas crashing into each other.Furthermore, the characters, in addition to being unattractively designed, are not particularly compelling. Chanticleer, while supplying a dead-on impression of Elvis Presley down to the voice and the singing (courtesy of Glen Campbell), is a two-dimensional lead. His barnyard friends, which include Patou, a droopy canine unable to tie his shoes, Peepers, a bespectacled and lisping mouse, and Snipes, a zany magpie, do little to emerge as anything memorable, although the first two are well voiced by Phil Harris and Sandy Duncan, respectively. Hunch, as mentioned, is unfunny, and useless. That leaves the character of Goldie, Chanticleer's love interest, who is supposed to be a tough girl that eventually falls in love with our hero, but the screenplay doesn't give her much to do. One suspects that she was included in this film just for the sake of a love interest. As for the Grand Duke, he's little more than your typical scary, nasty, scheming bad guy, despite having the voice of Christopher Plummer. And don't even get me started on where his supernatural powers (that enable him to grow to enormous size or transform anybody) came from.Where ROCK-A-DOODLE really falls apart is in its attempt to bookend the movie with live-action sequences. The idea is to include a real-life little boy, Edmond, as one of the story's major protagonists. Actually, he spends much of the film transformed as an animated kitten (a transition that feels very awkward and unnatural). And whining about how he is unable to do anything as a result of being small. Constantly. This subplot feels like it was tacked onto the story, hence one gets the feeling that it came out of nowhere.There are also two live-action/animation sequences in the movie, but unlike WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, they come across as very patchy and unconvincing--the real-life surroundings don't mesh well with the drawings, and it looks especially bad at the song and dance finale when the kid actor playing Edmond, Toby Scott-Granger, is brought back to the cartoon world. Speaking for the animation itself, it's pretty much below par, even for a Bluth production.Equally distracting is the narration that supplies most of the film. Phil Harris has a great voice and does a credible job (although some might find it strange that the dog is recounting the whole thing). The problem is that he narrates CONSTANTLY, even going far to chime in over some catchy songs sung by Chanticleer. Considering that this film is supposed to be a musical, having Harris chime in every two minutes proves to be very distracting. (The narration was apparently added on to prevent audiences from being confused, but why did they have to overdo it?)Probably the only things that come clean out of this mess are the voice work and the musical score by Robert Folk. Campbell, Harris, Duncan, Plummer, and squeaky Ellen Greene (as Goldie) all do the best they can with their characters, although Toby Scott-Granger's childish speech impediment does get in the way of his portrayal of Edmond (although considering how weak his character is, it's no surprise he doesn't give a memorable performance). The underscore, as mentioned, is also beautiful, far better than this movie has any right to be. T.J. Kuenster's dozen songs, on the other hand, are mediocre to bad, particularly the owls' Bach-style numbers, although the ones for Chanticleer are admittingly a lot of fun.As entertainment, ROCK-A-DOODLE is mostly harmless fare for younger kids. It has its funny moments, but anyone else older will find this to be uninspired and chaotic. Considering that this is from the director of THE SECRET OF NIMH, AN American TAIL, and THE LAND BEFORE TIME, its a disappointing endeavor.
