Reviews WesternAnimation / Rock A Doodle

The movie started out good, then the live-action part happened and it all went downhill from there.

If you want the plot, you can read on it on the main page. This will purely analytical.

This movie has a lot of problems. Firstly, it starts out as a cartoon then for no discernible reason shifts to live-action. You'll feel like you were watching two different movies. What seems like an great road for character development ends up as something else, something that's bad and doesn't make sense.

Patou's narration, which fights with Edmond's mother reading the Chanticleer book, interrupts not only almost every song except for the snippets and villain songs (save for the bouncers), which is a huge mistake in a musical, it also hampers character development. The audiences knows well ahead of time that the initially snobbish showgirl Goldie will become a nicer girl because Patou said so.

Speaking of characters, Edmond's the only one who receives meaningful character development without Patou cueing it. Snipes seems to exist just so the group has conflict. He, Peepers, and Patou receive no character development and merely have quirks in an attempt to make them appealing. The gag about Patou and his shoes could have been removed and replaced with some character development. Same goes for Snipes's thing with lasagna. Peepers's lisp makes her stand out, but it doesn't add any substance to her character.

Edmond seems to exist solely to get little kids to watch the movie. He was even played by a boy who was cast on the basis of cuteness.

With as much fanart as there is of Goldie, you'd be forgiven for thinking that she's a major character. As it turns out, her role is fairly minor and ends up more like just a love interest for Chanticleer. Ellen Green herself appears to be miscast as her Audrey voice doesn't cut it. I personally would have gone with Goldie Hawn.

The Duke's goals are too one-dimensional and Pinky isn't well-developed either. How do these two know each other anyway? What does The Duke gain from an eternal night besides more time outside?

Although some may say that it was just a dream of Edmond's, the ending proves otherwise. Sadly, the movie doesn't even have that as an excuse for all the unexplained weirdness.

End verdict: while not the worst movie Don Bluth has ever made, it is definitely one of his worst. I blame the executives on that though.