Everything about this movie is from the mind of Rodney Dangerfield. No, really. Rodney Dangerfield was the Executive Producer, screenwriter, and voice actor for this movie. After watching a lot of Rodney Dangerfield's stand up specials, and funny movies such as Back to School, and Caddy Shack; you would think this movie would be awesome. No it wasn't. It didn't work because the movie was too much of Rodney Dangerfield and rarely focus on anything else. The movie starts out with Rover (Rodney Dangerfield) whom living the good life in Las Vegas with his show girl owner Connie. Connie shows too affection towards Rover. It's creepy and weird. I almost expected a dog and human make out session from how much she loves him. One night, he witness Connie's slim ball boyfriend Rocky in a transaction with a pair of gangsters that goes wrong due to Rover. Looking for blame, he tossed Rover over the Hoover Dam into the Colorado River in a bag. The bag is pulled out by two passing fishermen, and Rover runs away scare. He runs into the farm run by farmer Cal and his son Danny. The little farm boy's voice is the same actress that voice Max in Goofy movie, but she got to my last nerve with her scratchy delivery in this. She sounded like she's been smoking too much or something. The kid's dad has this monotonous voice that's hard to take seriously. The farm is the stereotypical farm that looks nothing like a farm in Nevada or Arizona near Hoover Dam. It's all desert! Its looks like the Midwest. The farm is always attack by wolves, which is also something implausible. Coyotes, maybe, but they don't attack people. It's like the animator didn't bother researching Southwest America. Danny convinces his father to keep him. The father will take him in one condition: Rover must not get in trouble on the farm or he'll be sent to an animal shelter. Rover has difficulty adjusting to life on the farm, but with the help of Daisy, the beautiful dog next door, he succeeds in earning his keep until his past comes looking for him. Rover must choose between the high life, or the farm life. Still, poor Rodney Dangerfield, apparently no one told him that being good at stand up doesn't translate to being good at kid's stories. There are points in the movie that makes you question if this is a kid's movie at all. There are scantily-clad animated Vegas showgirls and dark humor about death. The king of one liners deliver some of the worst puns about life being a dog in every scene to point that it get annoying. Honestly it's kind of difficult to pull off jokes for children. The jokes can't be risqué, refer to pop culture that kids haven't been exposed to yet, involve complex word puns that are beyond their vocabulary, and so on. So I will ease up on Rodney for that. There was too much unnecessary dialogue tends to make some scenes drag. In this case, action does speak louder than words. The movie is tell, little show. Lots of scenes that go nowhere, and music that wasn't too catchy or needed. Why is there a song about pissing on a Christmas tree? What booze was Rodney on at the time when he wrote it? Some people says this is a Christmas movie because there is a Christmas tree song. I say this is as Christmas as Die Hard is. It was only Christmas time in a few scenes by the way. Most of the songs in the film are as bad as his rapping album. No, I'm not making that up, he really had an album of him rapping. This movie has quality animation. Honorable mention goes to the excellent 3D intro. Still, Rover looks like he was drop in the head. The bulging eyes on that dog are just terrifying. It's kind of creepy seeing him, paired up with the cartoon version of Lassie. Plus, Rover doesn't know if he wants to walk on two legs or not. What a distracting character design that might scare little children. Most children only the vaguest notion that the main character was supposed to be a cartoon version of Rodney. I think most children had no clue who he was at the time. The movie focus way too much on him. I wish some of the other barnyard animals besides Daisy and Ruffles would have got more spotlight attention. The dogs at the farm - Duke and Max as well as the eternally-bickering twins Lem and Clem were I all very interesting characters that I wish could have contributed to the story more. Still this movie is harmless. Rodney wanted to try his hand at kid's movies so he did. It didn't work for me, but still a fan of his. RIP Rodney Dangerfield
Review of Rover Dangerfield
