A day later than the usual weekly timeslot - a given, but I was feeling hot and bothered from too much sun exposure yesterday; when we have nice weather in Great Britain you immediately have to overdo taking advantage of it to the point it makes you sick because you know it will be fleeting and back to murky, grey drizzle within a matter of days, so I have a nice pinky beacon-like forehead going on at the moment. Thanks sun. On that tangent I felt like exploring a questionable Disney production this week and I'm reliably informed that Home on the Range is one of the worst animated Disney movies ever produced, which is quite an achievement, so I figured it was high time to find out just how low the bar sunk in the early noughties with this cartoon abomination.
Maggie, a show cow (Roseanne Barr) arrives at her new home and dairy farm; "A Little Patch of Heaven" and barely has time to settle in before it is revealed that owner Pearl (Carole Cook) only has 3 days to raise money to pay of a debt or the farm and all it's livestock will have to go on sale. Maggie immediately floats the idea that the animals can all compete in the county fare... county fair... county fair and with the 2 other farm cows; Mrs Calloway (Judi Dench... wow what, really?) and Grace (Jennifer Tilly) they set off to town. Whilst in town, when bounty hunter Rico (Charles Dennis) arrives to accept his next bounty; Alameda Slim - coincidentally the cattle rustler responsible for shutting down Maggie's old farm, the trio learn that his bounty is $750. The exact amount needed to save the farm and Maggie convinces them that they should try to bring him in. Rico just so happens to choose Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.... wow what, really?) as his next steed, a friend of the farm animals and sets off to find Slim. Along the way the bovine trio are almost hustled by Slim (Randy Quaid) himself when it transpires he can hypnotize cows by... yodelling... and abduct them Pied Piper style which coincidentally has no effect on Grace, who is tone deaf. After Rico and Buck manage to miss stopping the hustle, Rico abandons Buck and continues on without him who swears he will bring in Slim himself to prove his worth and the cows continue on following the trail. Meanwhile Slim learns that Little Patch of Heaven will be going to auction in 2 days and is determined to buy it... back with the cows and after spending the night sheltering from the rain they bump into Lucky Jack (Charles Haid), a rabbit from Echo Mines who lost him home when it was bought by Slim. Learning that Slim still hangs out there now, the bovine bounty hunters and Jack set off to face Slim. Arriving at Echo Mines, a Buffalo bodyguard prevents Buck from getting through but is happy to let the cows past... obviously... but spotting Rico, Buck hooks up with him and becomes his steed again. Inside the mines, the cows almost catch Slim but are thwarted when Buck crashes through their wagon, the trio and Buck & Rico take turns holding the wagon containing Slim captive until they crash into a cattle rustlers train, freeing Slim. Slim takes the cows under lasso and adds them to the cattle rustler train and it transpires that Slim has been paying off Rico to protect his cattle rustling all along! Slim leaves for the Patch of Heaven auction, but having a change of heart, Buck gallops back and frees the cows buckaroo-ing Rico off as he does, and the fivesome take the steam train to Little Patch of Heaven before it goes under the auction hammer. But! It's too late! Slim buys Patch of Heaven but then crashing through the fence in a steam train are the cows, and after a showdown with Slim, he is finally captured and Patch of Heaven is saved.
What is wrong with you people?... This was... well it wasn't really good... but it was alright? If this is the worst, the lowest that Disney sunk then they did pretty alright in my opinion? Sure this movie wasn't perfect - there were moments that were questionable on moralistic grounds and Maggie probably isn't a model for polite behaviour with her burping all the time and teaching the piglets to burp... but those minor niggles aside, this was a perfectly acceptable movie. More or less.
I mean, it's never going to sneak on any lists of classic Disney movies, granted. It's not Beauty and the Beast, it's not Pinocchio, it's not Lion King, to use another animal comparison, and granted that by the early 2000's more leviathans of animated cinema had been released; Shrek, Rugrats Go Wild, Disney had just done Finding Nemo and Lilo & Stitch and this is never going to compete with them, but this was never intended to break new ground in the realm of animated cinema. For me, Home on the Range had a lot more in common with the classic Disney cartoons of old that we're less about being a monumental box office smash hit, and more about telling a small tale in an fable-esque format. This is almost a modern tribute that era.
As I said, it wasn't perfect by any stretch; there were elements of the movie that felt very rushed, or lacking in development. The cows go to town and immediately set about going after Slim. They immediately discover he is in Echo Mines. They capture him straight away (more or less). They were probably looking to keep the runtime down but you could have developed on areas and fleshed parts out very easily and crept into the hour and three quarters mark and it wouldn't have hampered the movie too much in my opinion. Owing to the aforementioned point, the plot was then, understandably very bare bones: save the range, find the bad guy, stop him, the end. And it didn't stray much beyond that. This could have been an extended episode of an already in existence cartoon, or this could have just as easily been adapted to a made for TV cartoon and the decision to release to cinema was probably the wrong one in hindsight given that Disney Channel was a thing chronologically at this point.
Aside from the very brisk script, the dialogue was otherwise fine, and everyone put in a good job with their voice acting. Judi Dench and Cuba Gooding Jr were obviously pretty good in their respective roles but also Roseanne Barr did a pretty good job as Maggie. There wasn't much in the way of comedy going on in this movie though and whilst I did have it's sprinkling of amusing moments it was very thin on the ground with jokes and at one point I found myself thinking; "wow everyone is so sad in this movie..." it's certainly not a jolly little flick that is gonna cheer your little 'uns up, although everything works out right in the end I guess, so maybe that would work for them?
I am sure, positive, that Disney have churned out worst nonsense than this before now, worst animated nonsense at that and I was surprised about half way though at how enjoyable this movie actually was. It was never going to bring home any bacon and I think marketing it as such probably set the movie up to fall short really, but in retrospect and with the benefit of visiting the movie in hindsight I actually thought this was a good, enjoyable little film. Would I watch it again? Yeah I probably would actually. 3 out of 5.
