Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to be covering an animated musical from 1977. That movie is "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure". That title sounds far too fucking long for my tastes.
Now aside from the long title, I don't know a lot about this movie. In fact, I came across this movie sometime ago when I was watching a short animated film called "The Devil and Daniel Mouse", which I watch every now and again, because I really like that movie. And as I was scrolling down the YouTube recommendations, this movie was one of the things that appeared there. So, I decided to look up any kind of information on this movie that I could find, and to determine whether or not it would be worth covering for this series. And I came across a couple of things.The first thing is that this movie was adapted for two different stage plays. The first in 1981, and then another version of it in 1984, which was, apparently, a darker version of the story. So much so, that it also got a Broadway release, which really flopped. I don't know how much of the latter is true or not. And the second thing I know about this movie is that it did not last very long in theaters. Why? Well, the movie's budget was about $4 million dollars. And during it's short run in theaters, the movie only got back $1.35 million of it's budget back. So, basically, this thing couldn't even get half of it's budget back. Which isn't very good.
Now you might be asking why would I even cover this movie to begin with? Well, when I eventually looked up the trailer for this movie, the animation caught my interest a bit. It was very...eye catching, to say the least. And I am, somewhat, of an animation buff. More so for hand drawn than CG, but I'm not going to dwell on that too much. I don't know how the music is going to turn out, considering that this is a musical, but I am about to find out right now. So, the only thing for me to do at this point, is to shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure."
3 minutes later
OK, I kinda like how this movie's opening credits tell you who animated what character. That is something I've never seen done before in any animated film ever. It certainly is different, and I gotta give whoever did the opening credits that way some props there.
10 minutes later
All right, so we're up to the second song in this movie, so far, and Andy's singing...kinda sucks. I totally understand that it's way early on in the movie, and there's plenty of time for Andy's singing to get better. But, right now, it's a little bit grating. Mind you, the music, so far, has been pretty good. I'm just hoping for his singing to get better.
7 minutes later
OK, I was totally not expecting that kind of singing voice for Babette. Also doesn't help that some of her singing words are kinda hard to make out. I get that she's suppose to be supporting a French accent, but still, I was totally not expecting that kind of singing voice for her.
13 minutes later
So, guys, do you wanna know what makes Andy's singing worse? It's when you pair him up with Raggedy Ann's singing. It sounds so disjointed, that it's making this song a little bit shit to listen to. Mind you, Raggedy Ann's singing sounds fine, by herself. But when you pair it with somebody who doesn't know how to sing, at least so far anyway, then it's bringing both of these performances down, slightly. Again, I'm certainly hoping for Andy's singing to get better, but, right now, my hopes are kinda low at this point.
12 minutes later
You know, out of all the characters I've run across in this entire movie so far, the Greedy is one of the most uniquely bizarre looking characters I've seen that comes across as both creepy-looking, and uniquely animated. And no, I'm not gonna tell you how, you're gonna have to watch this thing for yourself.
10 minutes later
You know, guys, I would really like to explain what the hell I'm seeing right now. But even I have no idea the fuck what is going in this entire sequence. It's incredibly...odd.
14 minutes later
OK, I know that this is suppose to be a musical, but do we really need a song about the pirate captain and his parrot being true friends? It's rather unnecessary. Then again, most of this movie has been dragging for quite a while now, and it's starting to make this movie kinda dull.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure". And that title still sounds far too long for my tastes. I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. Wow...where do I even start? I'm gonna be honest, guys, this movie is going to be a very tough film for me to review. Because there is a lot here to like, but there's also a lot of big flaws here that stops this movie from being great.
Let's start with music. Because, after all, since this is a musical, I think it would be beneficial if I talked about the music and the songs first. And the music here ranges from pretty good to being really weak. I will start by saying that the music sounds great, if you take out all of the singing. By itself, the music sounds great. But then we get to the singing, and the singing is...a ridiculously mixed bag. In fact, I would say that out of all the songs in this movie, I can count, in one hand, the number of good songs that I really liked. Which were two or three of them. Everything else is either really short or complete crap. And a majority of these songs contribute almost nothing to the actual movie. Like I mentioned earlier, we didn't really need a song about the pirate captain and his parrot being close friends. Because, they are barely in the movie at all to begin with, so any character depth this movie tried to give them is completely non-existent. And while I'm on the subject of singing, the character of Raggedy Andy, or just Andy as I call him, has terrible singing for most of the movie. I was hoping that, when I was watching this thing, his singing would improve as the film went along, but unfortunately, it didn't get any better. And I mentioned that song earlier with both him and Raggedy Ann, as they are traveling through the Deep Deep Woods. It was fucking terrible. Because, as I said earlier, Raggedy Ann's singing voice is, actually, pretty good, when she's singing by herself. But when you pair it up with Andy's singing voice, it sounds so off-key and unnatural, that it makes them both sound terrible. To a point, that it was almost a chore to even get through that song without having to mute it entirely.
Now I talked about the pirate captain earlier, and how he and his parrot are both barely in the movie at all. And I'm gonna jump ship from music over into writing. Because the writing here is very weak. And when I say very weak, I mean it is a mess. So, we have this doll that came from Paris, France named Babette, that is a birthday present that was delivered to a little girl named Marcella. And Babette is lamenting the fact that she misses her home in France, but the rest of the dolls are trying to convince her that she's going to love her new home here. And as all of this is going on, the pirate captain sees her and attempts to kidnap her and take her as his prize. But he's trapped in a snow globe, because that's where he's lived throughout his 37 years, I think, and wants out. So he ends up tricking Raggedy Ann and the rest of the toys to let him out. And as soon as they get him out, he ends up claiming Babette as his prize and escapes out of a window with his pirate ship and crew. So it ends up with Raggedy Ann and her brother, Raggedy Andy, to find her, and bring her home.
Now all of that sounds fine for a children's film. I'm not expecting a deep, complex story. So, at least in terms of narrative, the concept is perfectly fine. The problem here, though, is that once our two heroes start looking for Babette, the entire story comes to a complete stop. Because, first of all, as I mentioned earlier, not only does the pirate captain disappear throughout most of the movie, but so does Babette. Which is mind-boggling, because she's suppose to be in some sort of peril as she was seen being kidnapped by these pirates. And you would maybe expect a scene or two where we get to see Babette, regretting the fact that she misses home and is hoping to be rescued. But that's not what happens. And this is going to be a bit of a spoiler, but the next time we see Raggedy Ann and Andy catching up to our pirates, Babette is suddenly a pirate captain. When the fuck did that happen? At no time, before then, did we ever get to see how Babette suddenly get the position of pirate captain or even get to see the actual pirate captain locked up below decks. It's really strange to me, because none of this was hinted at during the entire movie, and it really makes me question as to why we never get to see Babette or the pirates until the latter half of the movie?
While I'm on the subject of characters, almost every character in this movie has almost no depth to speak of. The only character that I can recall that had any kind depth was the Camel. Because, during the movie, our two heroes come across a blue camel literally called the Camel. I am not joking, he literally has no name. I guess it was too much of a challenge for the writers to come up with a name for our camel, but I digress. So, the camel once belong to an owner named Sam after he found him at a junk shop, and he felt loved since. And the noticeable features about the Camel is that his leg humps are flattened, and that the sticks in his legs don't function as well as they use to. Then, one day, he was thrown out by Sam's mother when he wasn't looking, and thus the Camel has been all by himself, as he's been busy looking for his caravan of camels. I'm not going to spoil that part, in case you really want to know what that is all about. Plus, also, one of the few songs that I liked in this movie comes from the Camel, which is another reason why I kinda liked him more. But, aside from him, nobody in this movie has any real character depth to speak of, including our two main heroes, who we spend the most time on in the movie. Now perhaps if this movie had focused less on songs, and more time in fleshing out our characters, then this would be a much better movie. But because this is a musical, and that we have a ton of songs in here, this is what we ended up getting.
And here, we come across my biggest problem with this movie. Which is the pacing. This movie has some of the worst pacing I have seen in a long time. Because I already talked about some songs being unnecessary to the story, and how I mentioned the main plot being put on the back burner after Babette gets kidnapped. The worse case of this comes from one scene where our three heroes, at this point, because the Camel ends up joining them, enter Looney Land. And, holy shit, does this scene drag on for far too long. Mind you, when I say that, I mean it lasts around 10 minutes. Now that may not sound very long, but if you ever decide to watch this movie, it really feels like 15 minutes, which still sounds too fucking long. You could almost cut this scene out of the movie, and you wouldn't miss a thing. The only reason as to why it exists is for a subplot involving King Koo Koo, that eventually leads our heroes to finding the pirate ship where Babette is being held at. But again, this film could've benefited had we not had that entire sequence involving Looney Land. Or at least spent as less time there as possible.
Now, I've gone over a lot for writing. And you would think that because of all these problems, I would say that the movie sucks. But I can't, because as I mentioned earlier, there is a lot to like in this movie. And this is where I'm gonna jump ship from negatives to positives. Let's start with the acting. The voice acting is fantastic. Every character, even though most of them don't have a ton of depth, has some spark of life brought into their performances. And it really shows here. Almost every actor in this movie is able give out some really solid performances to these characters. To which, even though the writing is heavily flawed, you are going to, mostly, enjoy what these characters are saying, because the voice acting is just that good. And even though I didn't care for Andy's singing, his acting is actually really good, so it's kind of a trade off. You'll like his acting, but you gotta get use to his terrible singing. There is one character, though, I do need to touch upon, which is Marcella, the little girl. I didn't mention this before, but this movie has a few moments where it'll transition from live action to hand drawn animation. And as I mentioned, every character who is voice acted sounds great. But during the scenes where it needs to be in live action, it focuses on one character named Marcella. And the actress who plays her does a terrible job at it. Now I totally understand that when you are dealing with child actors, you're not really expecting miracles from them, and that's kinda the case here, as well. But she was a terrible actress who really sounded stilted and robotic. But again, she was only a child actress. I don't know if she got any work since then or she's moved on to something else. Point is, she was the only actress who turned in a bad showing. But she's only in the movie for about, maybe, less than 10 minutes, so you won't have to deal with her acting for too long.
The animation is really good. Every character is designed beautifully, from color schemes, to the way that just about every character moves. All of this is some really smooth animation. And I have to give a special mention to the character of the Greedy. Because the Greedy, without giving away what he looks like, is always moving. At no time, will he ever stay the same way. He's always changing his shape and it's some really fascinating stuff here. In fact, the entire animation for this movie is incredibly eye catching. You're always going to be sucked into how these characters are moving. If there were any kind of negatives that I could pull from animation, there are two, and both are incredibly minor. The first one has to do with recycled animation. There are maybe, like, two shots where there are instances of recycled animation. One of them I can think of is towards the very end of the movie. Where we see the Camel looking into the window where all of the toys are together. And, for whatever reason, they use the exact same animation cycle where the Camel starts widening his eyes and his mouth drops slightly. I don't know why they had to use that same shot twice, but it is there, and it was kinda distracting. But that's, like, one of two instances where I could recall seeing recycled animation.
The second bit, and this isn't really a negative, but more so a gripe. I mentioned, a little while ago, that every character was designed beautifully. But some characters have this odd art-style to them that it could be seen as distracting. One example I can think of, is that there are two dolls that are twins. And the way that they are designed, kinda reminds me of something that you would see in a Disney cartoon short from the 40's. It's really odd, but I think that's more based off an artistic choice. Another character I can think of, and I'm not sure how to describe it, but she has a neck that looks like you would see something out of a jack-in-a-box. And her smile is really fucking creepy, too. But again, that's probably more of an artistic choice. In fact, that's something I will say is that the art-style is rather polarizing. And if you never watched stuff such as the older Disney cartoon shorts from the 40's, or any of the Rankin Bass television specials and movies, then there is a chance that you might not like the look of this movie. However, seeing as how I was able to get into the animation in this movie, because I have seen most of that stuff when I was a kid, it didn't bother me in the slightest. So, take it for what you will.
So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure"? That...is a very difficult question for me to answer. If you have children, or knows somebody that has children, then they are going to adore this. Even though the story is almost non-existent, most children are not going to notice this. The same could be said for the songs. They are not going to care that there are a lot of songs in the movie, because they'll be busy looking at the fantastic animation. As for adults, I could, maybe, recommend watching it once. Because this is a movie that, if you are into hand drawn animation, and you've never seen this before, then I can definitely say it is worth watching once. I, personally, don't even know if I will wind up watching this movie a second time. But I can say that I am kinda happy that I got to watch this movie once, and if I hadn't discovered this movie by accident, then I probably would've never known that this movie even existed.
Anyway, with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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