Home on the Range (2004)

The jokes suck, the animation's flat, and the plot is stupid. Compared to the famous Disney movies of the Disney Renaissance, Home on the Range has forgettable songs and a pointless plot. Even the children will dislike this movie, because the "Yodel Adle Eedle Idle OO" song would give them nightmares. No wonder it wasn't nominated for any Oscars or Golden Globes or Kid's Choice Awards! Alan Menken has done a better job at writing songs like "Beauty and the Beast", "A Whole New World" and many more songs that are way more memorable than the songs in Home on the Range. What was Disney thinking?! How could a Disney film this dull have a high budget of $110 million?! If Disney had the time to improve the music and plot, this film wouldn't have been such a box-office bomb! Disney announced that this would be their last hand-drawn animated film, because of the failure of this film. In 2009 however, Disney released their next hand drawn animated film called The Princess and the Frog. This film was way better than Home on the Range. The Princess and Frog had a well developed plot, well developed music, beautiful animation, and cool characters. The film was way more successful than Home on the Range. The Princess and the Frog earned $270 million worldwide at the box-office while Home on the Range only grossed $103 million. Disney never should have released Home on the Range in theaters. It should have been released directly to DVD and video.

Fmovies: From the moment the film starts, we know it's not going to be good, but the more I watch it now, the more cringe-worthy and unwatchable it gets.

Everything from the animation style to the characters and to the plot, is just an absolute train wreck. There is nothing redeemable about this picture. Pending loss of property, kidnapping of the cattle and Pearl's and the dairy cows' relationship as "family" makes me want to retch out of pity for how much fuss they're kicking up over nothing.

Even as a child when I watched it the first time, I had to skip some parts because they were just too silly for me. When you compare it to Finding Nemo for example, a much more dramatic picture with depth, lovable characters and outstanding dialog, you'll see what I mean.

It's not even one of those "so bad it's good" movies. Just plain unbearable.

where did it all go because it certainly wasn't spent on the animation. It was just your regular Saturday morning cartoon animation. I guess most of the money must have been spent on the stars who played the voices. Since Rosanne's been out of work lately, she probably asked for a pretty penny to do this.

It didn't have any fun songs that stand out in my mind. Plus, the plot was very generic. And it needed more animals. The main animals were cows, a rabbit, and a horse. There's also a goat, pigs, buffalo, and chickens, but they weren't shown a lot. One of the reasons people liked the story of Finding Nemo so much was all the different animals used to tell the story.

FINAL VERDICT: I guess 5 year olds will like it, but I didn't think it was too great.

Home on the Range fmovies. I really took a chance when I bought the DVD of "Home On The Range" because I had not seen it. It is not my normal practice to buy something that I am totally unfamiliar with. However, I was happily surprised. This movie was wonderful! My kids and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Roseanne provided a funny voice to one of the cows. Love her or hate her, the casting was perfect, like Ellen DeGeneres was for "Finding Nemo".

I read here on IMDb that "Home On The Range" is the last Disney film to be done with traditional animation. Maybe there are faster or cheaper ways of making these movies, but a great history is coming to an end. Kind of sadÂ… I recommend this movie. While it may not be a masterpiece, it is a delight that is better than most Don Bluth or Dreamworks films.

I would give it *** out of four. Fun and funny stuff!

The critics were right about this movie that it wasn't worth the time or movie to see it. This movie might have been one of the reason to shut down this ink animation dept. What was the purpose of this movie? Was it based on cows or Rosanne Barr? They should have featured her in a live action movie. There was not much of a story and it didn't make sense. A yodeling outlaw riding a bison stealing cattle right from under ranchers who don't have enough sense to take care of them. There is not one cow hand, cowboy, or cow dog in sight. Thank goodness, there are no predators either. Maybe this is a reason why the cows follow this outlaw like sheep, they never heard howling before nor are they ever sang to like one of the cows was by the old lady of pleasant valley.

While the film wasn't a total dud a la "Treasure Planet," it's certainly no "Little Mermaid," or even "Emperor's New Groove," which I consider the best of the latest crop of cartoons for its hip sensibility. "Home on the Range" suffers from an unoriginal and unfunny script, although it is not tediously poor or Saturday-morning-cartoon simple. To begin, there is an overabundance of plastic-playset ready characters (literally a whole farm full): the trio of bounty-hunting heifers played by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly; the yodeling cattle rustler Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) and his three bumbling nephews; the wannabe-hero steed Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr-- who ok'ed that name?); two lascivious bulls; a buffalo bouncer; a peg-legged jackrabbit; and a whole farmyard of pigs, chickens, a goose, and a surly goat. Oh, and Steve Buscemi shows up too, as a caricature of himself in a purple suit and a pencil moustache. Estelle Harris and Patrick Warburton (so memorable in "Toy Story 2" and "Groove," respectively), had brief cameos as well. There's no time for any kind of character development (not even with a sacred Disney "I Want" song), and the thinnest of premises has the cows hunting for Slim in time to get the reward money to save their farm. I was surprised not by the simplicity but by the unnecessary, unfunny bawdiness of the script (the movie opens with a shot of the Barr cow's ample udders, with her voiceover dryly remarking "Yep, they're real. Quit staring." Crossdressing, pee, and fat man jokes follow.) Alan Menken wrote a few snappy but unmemorable tunes (none of which are sung by the characters, but by the likes of Bonnie Raitt and k.d. lang) and a Coplandesque score. The film redeems itself in its art direction, which bursts with Disney color and retro UPA-style angularity. Especially in the opening scenes, a multiplane effect is used to further flatten, rather than deepen, this storybook world. It's an interesting and visually engaging concept that works well for the story. Backgrounds are intricately detailed with drybrush effects that call to mind "Sleeping Beauty;" if that film's art director, Eyvind Earle, had been called upon to paint the rocks and buttes of the American desert, it would have looked very much like this. It's quite stunning, actually, and the best art direction since 1996's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I especially appreciated a background detail in the town scene: one of the buildings was actually only a facade, held up by supports like on a backlot Western set. Similarly, sooner or later, not just critics but parents too will demand the Disney animated features to show that they have something behind that venerable name. "Home on the Range" will tide us over for now, but a renaissance of Disney is getting to be overdue. The Disney animation department (what's left of it), like it or not, needs to take a cue from Pixar and strive for family-friendly originality if they hope to maintain the integrity of the brand. ***