I don't know what the scriptwriter was thinking when he scribbled this up. I don't know what the many eyes poring over it once it was conceived thought about it, how the movie even got green-lit, and how anyone that read it could think, "This is the PERFECT movie for Felix the Cat!" What I do know is that they were all high as a kite, and I'm glad that it happened.
Felix the Cat: The Movie was created on acid, and you'll feel like you've dropped some yourself when you watch it. 1950's era Felix and his friends are dragged into a 1980's nightmare. From a purely critical perspective, the movie isn't very good; it's barely passable. From a human perspective, it's a unique, unforgettable experience that is an (poorly) animated smörgåsbord of crazy.
Taking classic cartoon characters and giving them theatrical movies has overstayed its welcome by now, but Felix was one of the first to do it. You're either going to pioneer a bunch of copycats (Scooby Doo) or be hated and resigned from ever trying again (Tom & Jerry). Felix slides under the radar and sits somewhere in the middle. It's my honest opinion that if it wasn't so obscure, it would be a cult favorite.
The basic gist of the movie's plot is that in an alternate dimension, Princess Oriana is forcefully dethroned when her villain-uncle, the Mysterio expy named the Duke of Zill, returns from exile and forcefully takes the throne. Her desperate plea for help manifests as a transdimensional tear that finds Felix and leads him (and the snooping pair of the Professor and Poindexter) to an elevator that takes him to Oriana's world. From there, Felix falls pray to the freakish nature of the land of Zill and is eventually enslaved. Using his magic bag of tricks, Felix finds the Princess and they escape, heading for the castle in an attempt to take down the Duke of Zill.
This movie is such a mixed bag. The animation suffers but the music is great. The story is out of place for something revolving around Felix the Cat, yet the setting is intriguing. The inhabitants of Zill all have monstrous designs, but are otherwise fun-loving people. When you see the state of their world versus the pristine land of Oriana, it makes you wonder if the Duke is really that bad, and just why they were content to see the princess forced to dance in a bubble if they considered her the source of their misfortunes. These are subtleties in the movie you won't see mentioned by people looking to trash it. If Felix wasn't a hopeless optimist with an annoying voice and plenty of crummy jokes, this movie would be a lot darker.
My favorite aspect of this movie, however, are the frequent moments where you just have to stare in disbelief and wonder if that really happened. Besides several bouts of terrible animation that border on hypnotic, there is a scene where the good guys are attacked by flying menaces known as "headhunters" that presumably decapitate (!) their victims, which features a quick frame of a bloody (!!) Oriana that they probably meant to delete. That scene is eventually topped when the characters are suddenly attacked by a man-eating dragon that randomly spouts Marlon Brando lines. I really thought someone had messed with the version of the movie I was watching when that happened, but I gained some respect when I realized it was intentional. Honestly, who *wouldn't* want to be attacked by a man-eating dragon spouting Marlon Brando lines? You're not going to get this kind of satisfaction from Frozen.
This is one of the few movies that I think legitimately qualifies as "so bad it's good."
Felix the Cat: The Movie was created on acid, and you'll feel like you've dropped some yourself when you watch it. 1950's era Felix and his friends are dragged into a 1980's nightmare. From a purely critical perspective, the movie isn't very good; it's barely passable. From a human perspective, it's a unique, unforgettable experience that is an (poorly) animated smörgåsbord of crazy.
Taking classic cartoon characters and giving them theatrical movies has overstayed its welcome by now, but Felix was one of the first to do it. You're either going to pioneer a bunch of copycats (Scooby Doo) or be hated and resigned from ever trying again (Tom & Jerry). Felix slides under the radar and sits somewhere in the middle. It's my honest opinion that if it wasn't so obscure, it would be a cult favorite.
The basic gist of the movie's plot is that in an alternate dimension, Princess Oriana is forcefully dethroned when her villain-uncle, the Mysterio expy named the Duke of Zill, returns from exile and forcefully takes the throne. Her desperate plea for help manifests as a transdimensional tear that finds Felix and leads him (and the snooping pair of the Professor and Poindexter) to an elevator that takes him to Oriana's world. From there, Felix falls pray to the freakish nature of the land of Zill and is eventually enslaved. Using his magic bag of tricks, Felix finds the Princess and they escape, heading for the castle in an attempt to take down the Duke of Zill.
This movie is such a mixed bag. The animation suffers but the music is great. The story is out of place for something revolving around Felix the Cat, yet the setting is intriguing. The inhabitants of Zill all have monstrous designs, but are otherwise fun-loving people. When you see the state of their world versus the pristine land of Oriana, it makes you wonder if the Duke is really that bad, and just why they were content to see the princess forced to dance in a bubble if they considered her the source of their misfortunes. These are subtleties in the movie you won't see mentioned by people looking to trash it. If Felix wasn't a hopeless optimist with an annoying voice and plenty of crummy jokes, this movie would be a lot darker.
My favorite aspect of this movie, however, are the frequent moments where you just have to stare in disbelief and wonder if that really happened. Besides several bouts of terrible animation that border on hypnotic, there is a scene where the good guys are attacked by flying menaces known as "headhunters" that presumably decapitate (!) their victims, which features a quick frame of a bloody (!!) Oriana that they probably meant to delete. That scene is eventually topped when the characters are suddenly attacked by a man-eating dragon that randomly spouts Marlon Brando lines. I really thought someone had messed with the version of the movie I was watching when that happened, but I gained some respect when I realized it was intentional. Honestly, who *wouldn't* want to be attacked by a man-eating dragon spouting Marlon Brando lines? You're not going to get this kind of satisfaction from Frozen.
This is one of the few movies that I think legitimately qualifies as "so bad it's good."