An action-packed slog

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Maybe it's a childhood thing. In fact it probably is. Considering the fact that i was at least 5 when I first watched this film, a young boy growing up in Ireland during times where nothing particularly amazing was happening. To be honest, back then i had absolutely no idea what i was watching. I just liked Rodney Dangerfield's voice. It was amusing. The song's were amusing, and Rover's little gimmicks every now and then sent me and my siblings chuckling and laughing, pointing at the screen and reenacting the said moments that had made us laugh so much "He look's kind of fat' I'm 17, and i've re-watched this on YouTube due to my sister sending me the link with the caption 'Part 1 for you' and a little love-icon. And yes, i watched it all over again, and found myself laughing at all the little moments again, finding humour in what is essentially a weak film. It just brought back all the memories of living in my favourite place back to me, and although for others, this is a tedious film that hardly suffices for children's entertainment, let alone anything else. This film is my personal favourite family childhood film, which i will always love and defend to the bitter end.

I started out this movie with a positive attitude towards it. Rodney Dangerfield brings character to a character that is essentially a milder, toned down canine version of himself. The animation isn't good, though the opening scene is really well animated. As the movie drags on, more characters are introduced. All of them are clichéd are very poorly voiced and none of them are interesting in the least. It's good to have Rodney Dangerfield as the star character and main attraction of his movie, but that doesn't mean every other character should be boring and underused. But in the end, it was the little things that made this a real stinker.Rover Dangerfield (Voiced by Rodney Dangerfield) is a gambling dog in Vegas and is owned by a Vegas show girl, Connie. Rover accidentally ruins an illegal deal being done by Connie's mean boyfriend Rocky, so when Connie leaves for a couple weeks, Rocky disposes of the dog, and Rover ends up on a farm. Now Rover must learn to work for his meals and learn to live out of the city. Along the way he makes some boring friends and falls in love with the neighbor farm's dog, Daisy. By the end, Rover must choose between the high life and the farm life.There were quite a few things in this movie that didn't make much sense. First off, Rocky wants to get rid of Rover, so he throws him over the Hoover Dam? It seems like taking him a mile out and leaving would suffice, but instead he gets thrown over a dam. Earlier, Connie got mad at Rocky for showing up late to her birthday. What didn't make sense is, she was about to go on stage, and it seemed the other showgirls surprised her with this, so how was Rocky supposed to know to come. And even if he did know, he only came like a minute after the girls sang happy birthday. One minute late to a party he wasn't in on doesn't seem like that big of deal.Connie shows affection towards Rover. She really loves her dog...maybe a little too much. She's living on a showgirl salary, and she feeds him steak and whatever he wants every day. Everything he does she laughs at, something Rover couldn't pull off for the viewing audience. She is constantly kissing and hugging him, and several times before leaving says she'll miss him. At the end, she drives what must be hundreds of miles to private property just because she thinks he might miss a female dog on the farm...that makes no sense. This movie is supposed to have the realism that humans are the dominant species on the Earth and dogs are their pets, but to me, it seems she is his love slave or something. It's creepy and weird. I almost expected a dog-human make out session from how much she loves him. Also, the farm people love Rover a lot, and are always hugging and kissing him, but why are they neglecting all the other more useful farm dogs?The voices here are just awful. The little farm boy got to my last nerve with his scratchy delivery. He sounded like he's been smoking too much or something. The kid's dad has this monotonous voice that's hard to take seriously. Raffles, the sheep dog also gives some horrid deliveries. Overall, it just should be chalked up to bad voice acting, except for Rodney, and Sal Landi who was quite good as Rocky.Characters and character traits are introduced, but by the end they add up to nothing. Rover is supposedly a funny dog, so you think maybe by the end he'd become a comedian, but nope. Just ditch the idea that everyone thinks he's funny. Rover meets all these dogs on the farm that have unique character traits, but not one of the dogs must've got any more than 10 lines in the entire movie, except for his love interest, Daisy.What's a good way to pick up a mediocre cartoon? How about making it a musical. That usually works right...usually it does, but the music here is so run of the mill. The songs are boring and add nothing to anything. Most of them are random, too and express nothing. One song, Rover sings about not peeing on Christmas trees, one about liking living the high life in Vegas. Might as well have a song about Rover sleeping, and one about him eating. They're about as important as the actual songs.My biggest pet peeve in animated movies was featured here. The farmer's son asks to keep the dog and the dad and the son are discussing this. Meanwhile Rover is saying all kinds of stupid things that are supposed to be witty, during their conversation. For some reason, every time Rover talks, their conversation takes a long pause, then they continue. They aren't paying attention to Rover, they're just randomly taking 30 second pauses after each statement. I seriously hate that in cartoons! Overall, this is a really cruddy animated feature, with voice work that would've been more lively if each character was voiced by Ben Stine, and inconsistencies throughout. Avoid this one, even if you're a fan of Rodney Dangerfield.My rating: * out of ****. 70 mins. Rated G.

When this movie came out - I was it's target audience - a child.And I loved this movie.Rover Dangerfield, is a great movie for kids - better than half the crap, that parents are letting their kids watch, which is far too mature for them.This movie is filled with enough seriousness, that kids don't feel like they're being talked down to - and enough adult appeal, that even my father used to always sit down with us to watch it.The humour is great, the characters charming - particularly Rodney Dangerfield, as Rover - what I think people are forgetting it - it doesn't have to be perfect by your standards - unless you watched it as a kid at the time of it's release and were actually a child of that time - just let your kids watch it, and ask what they think...You probably watch what they think is crap, so who are you to be a judge?

Alright, this movie doesn't get nearly the recognition it deserves. Everyone keeps saying it's adult oriented and kids won't like it but this was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I watched it at least once a day for months. Granted, it's not one of the best movies ever made, but give it a chance. To me it was a nice change from Disney.