Carl the Critic: Talks about "Cats Don't Dance" [Revised]

Arguably 1997 was one of the best year for movies. We get such great classics as "Titanic," "Good Will Hunting," and "L.A. Confidential." But there were a few movies that were over looked in this year, such as "Cats Don't Dance." It premiered on March 28, 1997 and because of lack of advertising was completely overlooked at the box office. With a budget of $32 million, it only made a little over $3 million, which is a shame because it is one of my personal favorites. I saw this movie a while ago and instantly fell in love with the music by Randy Newman, and the characters. As a film buff I especially enjoyed finding movie references to such classic films such as "Sunset Boulevard," "King Kong," "Wizard of Oz," and other films, where the movie gets some of the humor from (the same way "Paul" gets its jokes from famous science fiction movies.) The voice acting was well done, and the direction of Mark Dindal (who made "The Emperor's New Groove," and "Chicken Little") is very clear.

STORY: The movie circles around Danny, a cat who leaves his home of Kokomo, Indianna to go to Hollywood to pursue a dream of fame and fortune as a tap dancing cat. There he lands a small movie roll but finds out a that being an animal in Hollywood has its disadvantages. He meets several other animals who all had the same dream only to have them shattered. Danny also meets a girl named Darla Dimple, who is a Shirley Temple like character if Shirley Temple were evil and manipulative, who tricks Danny and gets him and the rest of the animals kicked out of Hollywood. Now it's up to Danny to restore his reputation as well as the reputation of all the Hollywood animals and to expose Darla Dimple for the evil little brat that she really is.

CRITIQUE: This film has great exaggeration and the animation is fluid, and the great voice acting made the story more believable (you can actually feel for the characters in the ways you are suppose to feel for them.) The story is very similar to "Hairspray" which is good, because it is a good story of racial tolerance and living your dreams as a star.

The film was long at times, and sometimes the dialogue might have been awkward and jarring, and the ending takes longer than it probably should, but this is a movie that is still fun for the whole family.

OVERALL: I give this film a 9.2 out of 10, I highly recommend checking out this film if you ever want to watch something that is fun, sweet, hilarious, and are in the mode to groove to some catchy music.