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Some of you may remember back when I reviewed of the infamous “Felix the Cat: the Movie”, and whether you like it or hate it, it is a movie that exists. However that film was not to be the last venture Felix made into modern cinema…No, Siree! Ladies and gentlemen, my late holiday gift to you is the second (and so far last) Felix the Cat movie!
“Felix the Cat Saves Christmas” is a direct-to-video animated feature released in 2004 by Felix the Cat Productions (prior to Don Oriolo selling the rights to Dreamworks). The animation this time around is substantially less impressive than Felix’s prior feature production…which is more than a little surprising to say the least; the whole thing looks like it was animated in Flash and seems to be more suited for a low-budget TV special (which makes sense 'cause that's pretty much all it is).
Unfortunately, it seems as though the creators of this movie didn’t learn a thing from the failure of their last feature flop as some of the same problems return to gradually wear on the audience’s patience. Much as with the film from 1988, this holiday non-classic suffers from an excessive amount of overblown filler and unnecessary dialogue, because in this production certain characters (Poindexter in particular) just never seem to know when to shut the fuck up! I know he’s supposed to be an egg-head super-genius, but that doesn’t mean he has to babble incessantly about pointless shit. A better way to show that this character is smart would be to have him say just the right thing at just the right time and nothing else. Some characters are seriously better served as plot-convenience, but hey! Let’s not single anybody out, because frankly just about EVERY character in this movie needs to dial it back a bit. The expression is “show, don’t tell” for very good reason!
Now I know Felix has gone through a varied selection of voice actors in the past given his sparse appearance in cartoons after the black ‘n’ white era, but GOOD GRIEF! This version of him sounds like Mickey Mouse with lung cancer! And as if he wasn’t annoying enough, Poindexter talks like he’d just got his balls caught in a vise grip. Ironically though, the voice-acting in this film isn’t COMPLETELY terrible as the characters who aren’t regulars to the Felix franchise (namely Santa Claus and his elves) actually sound halfway decent…probably because they’re lines were not all ridiculously over-written.
The plot of this movie is about as cliché-standard as you can get given the premise. The Professor hates Christmas for the usual arbitrary “because I’m the bad guy” reasons, and sets out to destroy Christmas with a weather machine that leaves Santa snowed-in at the North Pole in addition to burying the entire planet in the world’s biggest snowdrift. Enter Felix and his nerdy friend, Poindexter, to save the day with outlandish gadgets and help from a troop of tiny delinquent snow-kids. It’s about as typical and unoriginal as you can get. I mean I’m willing to give the movie points for the magic living snow-children, but apart from that this is pretty much your average “So-and-So Saves Christmas” holiday bullshit that we’ve all seen over a million times already!
Oh, and if it wasn’t bad enough that the dialogue, line-delivery, and premise are as shallow and half-assed as can be they only make matters worse by trying to turn it into a musical as well. Seriously, if you can’t even manage to curb your characters’ “gift of gab” so the audience doesn’t rebel you shouldn’t even attempt musical interludes. It’s a disaster waiting to happen!
It’s also a VERY sad day when a movie starring FELIX THE CAT can’t even manage to tell have half-decent joke. The humor in this Felix the Cat movie is very much hit-or-miss…mostly miss.
Even though I actually somewhat liked the 1988 Felix the Cat film, I can’t deny that the movie definitely suffered from some serious flaws…but it was still fun to watch because of how over-the-top insane it was. The whole thing felt like somebody’s acid-laced fever dream, and I’ve always been a sucker for whacked-out surreality, but this movie has no excuse. The creators didn’t learned from the mistakes of the previous film (they even had a vastly more successful TV series to draw inspiration from), but it was like they didn’t even bother to try. They half-assed it and they half-assed it HARD! There isn’t even a sufficient amount of surrealism to save this picture. It’s the worst thing that a Felix the Cat cartoon could ever be…stale and predictable, and yet despite all the terrible things I’ve said about this film I still derive a minute modicum of enjoyment from watching it. I honestly can’t tell you why; maybe it’s just the thrill of seeing Felix in something animated again after all these years…but who can say for sure?
It almost makes me glad that Dreamworks now owns the rights to Felix the Cat...I don’t have any real faith that they’re going to do anything decent with him, but if this last Felix film is any indication the original owners clearly just stopped trying.
