Home on the Range

I’m sure that somewhere in the corridors of Disney, there is a boardroom of executives crying out, “Oh, give me a home, where the grosses are large, and the critics and the audience all love me!”

Before we get into the long list of what Home on the Range lacks, lets address the rather short list of what this film Accomplished.

Home on the Range has, um, what was it again? Oh yeah, the great Disney Stamp. There was a time when having such a stamp on a feature animated film instantly meant hundreds of millions in grosses, and joyous audiences world-wide. Alas, without the talent of Pixar, poor Disney scrambles for cheap imitations and lousy animation.

Home on the Range is the imaginative story of the Cows of the Little Patch of Heaven ranch as they wrangle the evil Alameda Slim to save the farm. Roseanne (the actress formerly known as Roseanne Barr) Does do a fantastic job as the voice of one of the Bovine Bounty hunters, Maggie. Also lending incredible voice talents are Steve Buscemi (Big Fish, Monsters, Inc., Armageddon) as Wesley and Cuba Gooding Jr. (Radio, As Good As It Gets, Jerry Maguire) as Buck.

Home on the Range will go in history as yet another animated film by Disney that was lost in the black years, where non-Pixar animated films were unimaginative and bland. So it goes, in a long string of uninspired animated hits, Home on the Range joins its brethren. The animation, although heavily styled, is only a mild step above what one would find in after-school cartoons. The character’s movements are static, and emotions are only hinted, but never animated. Songs in Home on the Range is only comparable to background noise, and is nowhere near the ranked talent of yore.

Even character development took a back seat to what must have been an increase in marketing dollars. The adult humor so skillfully hidden in and between the dialog and actions of the character is all but missing, leaving nothing for the paying audience to grab onto. If the adults don’t like it, they won’t buy it when it is released on DVD, sorry Disney.

If you have the choice between rotating your tires and seeing this film skip them both and grab a beer. This movie is just about as bad as it gets.