Animal Farm on DVD (1999)

JimBobAJob from Worcestershire , 05/11/2004

What were the producers of this film thinking? They have managed to make a real pig of a film (please excuse the pun) which in no way resembles the vision of one of the most important novels of the 20th century.

The animation was shocking (a cod mixture of muppets style animatronics, digital animation and Mr Ed style "talking" real animals) and really took the viewers mind away from the message of the story. That message in itself was heavily watered down with a poor script which painted Jones the farmer in far too symapthetic a light and even had a "modern" post collapse of communism ending put in. Why? The 1950's animated version is head and shoulders above this travesty. Wait until that gets released on DVD or read the book.

Don't waste 2hrs of your life watching this.

  4 out of 4 people found this review helpful

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A customer from Epsom, England , 10/01/2005

I can't get excited about this one. It is a reasonable adaptation of the George Orwell book, although loses a few of the layers of complexity to fit it in a film.

The animation is good and the division between real animals, puppets and computer animation is not distracting.

Good mixed age viewing, but won't be one the kids' want to watch time and time again. Probably a good way to introduce teenagers to George Orwell.

  1 out of 2 people found this review helpful

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A customer from West of England , 19/03/2006

Far better reading the book!

  1 out of 2 people found this review helpful

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Pipkin3 from Derby , 12/10/2006

It's a so-so film. Despite the voice talent, the varying accents jar terribly, and many characters, like Mollie, get sidelined and vanish half way through.

You can see they've put the effort in visually, which lovely scenery and some nice looking animatronics for the era.

It's just a shame that it comes off rather camp. Having napoleon sniggering like a piggy villain in a corner of the farm just isnt' scary.

It isn't scary enough, and the obviously dumbed down 'slaughter' scene is annoying,

One surprise though is the quality of the music, shame it didn't get a lot of recognition.

The extras aren't much to shout about either. Just a shoddily edited making of, a trailer and all brief look at the symbolism behind the story.

Overall, it could have been worse (the talent is there) but could have been so much better.

If you a want dramatic animal film, watch Watership Down instead.

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Pipkin3 from Derby , 12/10/2006

It's a so-so film. Despite the voice talent, the varying accents jar terribly, and many characters, like Mollie, get sidelined and vanish half way through.

You can see they've put the effort in visually, which lovely scenery and some nice looking animatronics for the era.

It's just a shame that it comes off rather camp. Having napoleon sniggering like a piggy villain in a corner of the farm just isnt' scary.

It isn't scary enough, and the obviously dumbed down 'slaughter' scene is annoying,

One surprise though is the quality of the music, shame it didn't get a lot of recognition.

The extras aren't much to shout about either. Just a shoddily edited making of, a trailer and all brief look at the symbolism behind the story.

Overall, it could have been worse (the talent is there) but could have been so much better.

If you a want dramatic animal film, watch Watership Down instead.

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Trionon from London [Highly rated reviewer] , 18/10/2008

What was wrong with the original story? It's almost bordering 'Babe', it's so hideous

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