Raining Cats and Frogs (2003)

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is a film of tremendous beauty, the raw organic animation is captivating and hard to come by in modern children's films. The French title for the film is the "Prophecy of the Frogs" - and the amphibians figure prominently in the beginning of the picture. (Think about it - frogs are disappearing from our natural environments, so they are indirectly giving us a very real warning of a global weather disaster.) In this cartoon, the frogs tell a boy and girl of their scientific findings: the world will be flooded for 40 days and 40 nights. Sound familiar? Yes, the family is saved but, as it happens, they are the temporary custodians of a zoo - so all the animals join them in the ark. Problems, problems, problems. Although the Noah character - Ferdinand - brings tons of potatoes into the ark, the carnivores hungrily eye the chickens and the pigs and the other animals as food. Potatoes simply will not do. Ferdinand's message of peace is that all must learn to live together. He tells the animals that violence means the end for all life. But not all the animals see it that way...there are some truly frightening images. I liked this version of Noah, the film has moments of tremendous visual beauty. Another plus is that Ferdinand carries a guitar and sings beautiful, even moving folk songs to all the animals.

Most animation films are so bad nowadays - they are full of flashing colours and meaningless noise. When children are watching them it's like feeding them white sugar with a spoon. But still there are some jewels that offer real nourishment for those growing - this film is definitely one. And this is just to fill line to achieve the minimum amount required. I wonder why they have these requirements - its not at all suitable for people that come from a country where much is said but only very few words are actually used : ) And there's no need to over-analyze everything - people are smart enough to think themselves!

It is wonderful in these times of 32-bit bump maps and other animation "aides de compute" to see something this organic; this handmade. The colours are gorgeous, the fantasy is wonderful. So why did I leave the cinema verging on angry? It was the story. Though this is principally a children's film it goes for the jugular with a kind of morality tale I haven't seen since "It's a Wonderful Life". Don't get me wrong, "Wonderful Life" is a terrific, sentimental film from nearly 6 decades ago but even 7-year-olds today are more cynical than George Baily in Capra's film.The basic premise in "Prophétie..." is that humans need to be nicer to each other otherwise the world will end. This is OK as far as it goes, but not even another person who said the same thing 2000 years ago made out that we all had to behave exactly the same way to achieve this utopia.In this film the main difference between the animals on the new ark are that some are herbivores and some are carnivores - and the carnivores are forced to eat potatoes in order for them all the survive. This is has some comic point to start with, but when the fox, tiger and others start complaining that they are sick of pommes frites, the captain sings a song about how they need to pull together. Not even The Brady Bunch went this far! Everyone was respected as individuals and difference were encouraged. Here it is more "shut up and eat your spuds". Though I hope the author of the film expected it to come across more as some subtle morale to the tale, for me (admittedly not the demographic I expect he was trying to reach), this was closer to socialist propaganda of the worst 1970's sort; except it was made more addle-minded by adding even more ethically dubious green values. Lions eat meat. They always have. And they should. The world might be a better place if humans where all happy to eat their metaphorical spuds, but that's not a world I want to live in.