Home on the Range (2004)

Home on the Range (2004)

6/10

Starring the voices of

Roseanne Barr

Judi Dench

Jennifer Tilly

Cuba Gooding Jr. 

Directed by Will Finn and John Sanford

 

Home on the Range is not a bad film, but it is far from superb, and its tale is easily forgettable, with characters that make little to no impact on the mind. It comes across as an animation made directly for children, who won’t bother to think too much about what’s going on the screen but will be amazed by the colors and the numerous jumps around.

The animation’s intended reach surprises me. I don’t understand how Disney expected this to be a box-office hit. I feel the story and animation are fair enough for a direct-to-DVD release, but leave it to Disney to go overboard. Here’s something I don’t get: they made Brother Bear (2003) with $46 million, which was a huge box office success, then decided to make this with over $100 million. I don’t get it.

Why invest so much in an animation whose story is very basic, with no emotional tie like Brother Bear (2003)? There’s no deep comedy like Tarzan or The Emperor’s New Groove, or even action-adventure like Atlantis: The Lost Empire or Treasure Planet. And forget about the soundtrack, because that too doesn’t compare to the songs in the animations before it.

The animation drops us flat in a western setting, where we meet Maggie, the only cow left on her ranch after an outlaw known as Alameda Slim stole all the cows. This outlaw cow wrangler is capable of stealing all the cows from numerous ranches in one night, without much noise. When the owners wake up, they see that all their cows are gone.

Maggie’s owner is left distressed and financially downtrodden and sells Maggie off to Pearl Gesner, a kind old woman who runs a small farm called Patch of Heaven. The sheriff informs Pearl that her farm will be taken over by the bank if she fails to pay the $750 loan she took.

Well, Maggie got an idea and managed to get the two other cows on the farm to go along with her. There’s Grace, the ever-happy resident, and Mrs. Calloway, the cow who seems to be running things on the farm.

The plan was to first get the sheriff’s horse, a show-off wannabe who wants to be ridden by a famous bounty hunter. That plan didn’t go well, as the horse was obnoxious and proud. The second plan was to capture the notorious cow wrangler and get the reward money.

They went for the second plan, and we get to watch how these three cows battle a cow wrangler who has special skills he uses to get cows to do what he wants.

In the end, I can see why many may forget that such an animation was made.