Change Your Image
TheUnorthodoxFox
Reviews
Felix the Cat: The Movie (1988)
This was really put into theaters? Wow.
I remember watching this on VHS as a kid, and even then, it seemed odd. So, when I got the chance to watch it again, I had to take it and confirm that, yes, even before I developed any sort of taste, there was a reason
You've got:
Colliding art styles: Felix retains some of the start-stop jerkiness often found in old cartoons, while the princess shows some (but not quite enough) fluidity. The rest of the characters are bouncing, flailing, late-'80s style messes. Ugly as sin, and made worse by repeated scenes, which only get uglier the second time through.
For a kid's movie, why the heck is there a scene with mutant seahorses trying to attract the attention of a pair of legs by flouncing their boobs about, and a gag where a young fox is straining to pee on Felix's magic bag?
There's almost no plot. It's more like a series of events that just kind of happen, but never once feels tied together. It doesn't make sense, not in a surreal and zany way (cf. Yellow Submarine), but in a wholly pointless one. There's no depth of character, either; they're all just things moving around on a screen, without motivations or logic or plot.
Presumably, the Professor and Poindexter characters are a tie-in to the old show, but they add absolutely nothing to the movie. In fact, there's a number of scenes that don't seem to do anything besides take up time.
The audio frequently fails to match up with the animation, from the music scenes to voices. And voices are regularly obscured beneath the score and sound effects. But that's okay, because voice acting ranges from apathetic to obnoxious to hammy and overblown. Not that there's much to say. If there's not a groan-worthy line exposition occurring, there's a constant babble of lame puns instead.
It's watchable as an animated train wreck or distraction for kids with undemanding tastes, but an animated classic it is not. Oh, the songs are kind of catchy, in an embarrassingly cheesy manner, though.