Rock Dog (2017)

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

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

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Tibetan sheep dogs have protected their valley from the wolves over the years. Bodi (Luke Wilson) is expected to follow his father's footsteps. One day, a crate falls out of a passing plane. Bodi finds a radio among the stuff and he is taken immediately with the rock music idolizing rock god Angus Scattergood. He leaves the valley for the big city to follow his dream. Wolf leader Linnux orders his kidnapping. I didn't realize that this is a Chinese animation with the western looking DVD cover. I thought that this was a second tier kids' movie. I don't mind the Chinese village motif at the beginning and then Bodi leaves for a big generic city. That's when the possible interesting Chinese animation turns completely generic and forgettable. There is a bit of timeless fun and magic about the village, and later actual magic from his music. The movie would work much better to stay in the village and stay with the fun timeless magic. It should be one thing or another. Honestly, I didn't realize that the village exists in the modern world. It spends enough time building the world of the valley that it loses the fun once Bodi goes to the modern city. It's really two different world that exists in two different movies. Otherwise, it's a generic animation of generic characters doing generic things.

This film tells the story of a dog in a snowy mountain somewhere in Tibet. He has an aspiring dream to be a rock musician, but his military father does not approve of him pursuing his dreams."Rock Dog" is the second Chinese produced animation I watched recently. In this animation, there a lot of Chinese elements portrayed in it. The Chinese elements are mostly signs in Chinese, and the design of some of the characters. However, the film still feels Western because the whole idea of pursuing your dreams a quite a Western thing to do. the story is quite funny, and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. The moment when the door is opened by the wolves made me laugh! the music is good as well. I enjoyed watching it.

This review of Rock Dog is spoiler free**(2/5)AT ONE POINT in Chinese-American animation Rock Dog, our protagonist meets with a scrawny English cat (Eddie Izzard) who treats him to new tricks about Rock and Roll. An obvious nod to Rock of Ages which had an insane Russell Brand teach an inspired individual about the traits of the music world. The cat is insane here but he doesn't hit the correct notes, in fact none of the characters in this outwardly unoriginal animation do. Which in a genre when directors are supposed to be their most creative - this is perhaps the least creative.We open with teenage Tibetan Mastiff Bodi (Luke Wilson) who lives under the shadow of his father, Khampa (J.K. Simmons) who has banned music around the town and wants his son to follow in his footsteps to become a guard, teaching him about his powers - Bodi thinks there is more to life than being a guard. He unlocks a magical gift with music then when a radio lands on his head and he sees a whole other world to meet with his idol - he goes to New York to perhaps perform with him. Along the way the film hits familiar notes, there's a pack of Godfather inspired wolves who want to attack his city, there's a Yak named Fleetwood Yak (Sam Elliott) who teaches Bodi that he has a gift and finally there's a point when the famous rock-star takes all the credit. It's been done.There's inspiration here it follows along the same lines as artsy animations such as Kubo and the Two Strings or perhaps Coraline, but due to the lacklustre ideas of overused techniques this quickly descends into unoriginality. This is a shame especially since this has Pixar veteran director Ash Brannon helming the ship. In addition it also has eight writers but it seems here they only wrote a couple of lines of characterization for each character perhaps making them feel 2D, and the rest is clunky dialogue. On the bright side there are couple of gags mostly from Izzard's scrawny cat who falls over himself a lot and the sheep dress up as dogs to fool the wolves. Brannon neither makes this funny nor imaginative and in an animation that's the latter, there are so many references too that it's hard to follow which you're watching. Rock Dog is a cheaply looking, inspired, list of ideas, references and uneasy clunky dialogue and unfunny gags and albeit rushed Chinese-American animation that fails to make one correct guitar lick into being a memorable and hilarious animation. VERDICT: An unpleasant and unremarkable animated comedy which ties tired visuals with a thin plot and a characterless drive. It's one guitar lick too far away from memorable too.

One night, in the midst of finals week, we stumbled upon this unique tale of a courageous canine. Did we go into this with high expectations? Not really, but boy were our minds blown. Bodi's empowering optimism and commitment to his dream were pawsitively enlightening. This little dog with a big heart demonstrated the power of individually and being true to yourself. Bodi's relationship with his father was strained, but he did not allow his creativity to be crushed by the expectations of those around him, which is a great message for anyone. Every character is not only complex, but also adorable. Unfortunately, we felt the need to deduct one star from our rating. One half star because the title dog did actually rock enough for our taste. To be clear, this is not due to our dislike of the music, but its failure to fit into the "rock" genre. Another half star because neither of us quite understood why the sheep needed to be sheared only to be clothed once again in their own wool, this time in sweater form. Overall, Rock Dog is an underrated tale of self discovery. When times are ruff, you can count on Rock Dog to unleash your inner fire.