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hankman1
Reviews
101 Dalmatians (1996)
Fine movie but ... raccoons in England?
This is a really minor spoiler. You know about all the animals that help the dogs. Raccoons are among them.
There, I said it. This movie is supposed to take place in England. That's where the cartoon took place and that's where most of the live-action characters still get their accents.
Raccoons do not live in England. They are a species native to North America. A better British critter, as clever as a raccoon and in the same family, would hail straight out of Wind in the Willows -- the European badger.
The movie was fine otherwise, but this kind of thing shows Disney really doesn't care about details. Imagine a movie in which meerkats from The Lion King scampered through American backyards. It's that kind of mistake.
Doctor Dolittle (1970)
Cool for a kid, silly for an adult
This was one of those cartoons that do NOT play on both child and adult levels. Unlike the Hugh Lofting books or even the Rex Harrison movie, this was 100 percent played for laughs.
I liked it in seventh grade. And frankly, I would still rate it closer to the original than that hip Eddie Murphy version.
I didn't like the villain, though. The name Sam Scurvy implies a pirate, but he wears the fedora and pinstripes of a 1920s Chicago gangster.
A better ongoing villain, truer to the times, would have been a 19th century capitalist out after the secret, as if there were one, and we could contrast his materialism with the Good Doctor's more philosophical and compassionate side.
But I forgot. That would have required playing on the adult level, as well.