User reviews

Coming from a big lifelong animation fan, 'Rock Dog' may not be on par with the best films of the best major animation studios (i.e. Disney, Pixar, Studio Ghibli), nor does it ever try to be or be anything more than it is.

It's also much better than especially anything from Video Brinquedo and, although to me critics do not deserve anywhere near the over-the-top bashing they get on the internet, 'Rock Dog' is another case of liking it much more than they did and going against the grain. 'Rock Dog' is less than perfect, but for the imperfections there are it has its heart in the right place, it knows who to aim it at and really tries to appeal to all ages and it doesn't try too hard or attempt to do more than it needs to.

'Rock Dog' may not be ground-breaking in story, a good deal of it is derivative, and some of the plotting concerning the villain's plan is a bit strange and takes away at times from the rest of the story. The film is also too short, if it were twenty minutes longer it would have fleshed out the slightly underdeveloped lead character Boni more and done more with the disapproving parent cliché.

However, the animation may not be mind-blowing or imaginative but it's colourful and detailed enough and at least the characters don't look ugly. The music is truly amazing and along with the supporting characters steals the show. In particular "Glorious", which lives up to its name.

Writing is witty and heartfelt and while the story execution is less than perfect it goes at a bright and breezy pace, is fun, is inspiring, is well-meaning and has a heart of gold that comes over movingly. Although he could have been better fleshed out more, the lead character is an easy to relate to one. Stealing the show though is the hilarious character Angus Scattergood, a character so rich in personality and so much fun he is worthy of a solo outing of some kind. Fleetwood Yak (nostalgic adults will have a good chuckle at this) is fun too.

Voice acting is good, with the best contribution coming from a note-perfect Eddie Izzard. JK Simmons is perfectly gruff as well and Luke Wilson is a likable lead. On paper, Lewis Black didn't seem right to me for a villain but he won me over, making Linnus a suitably formidable and somewhat cool villain. Mae Whitman is charming.

Overall, didn't love it but liked it better than thought. 7/10 Bethany Cox

So this movie was a little more than what I expected (Or just better than I expected).

It starts out with this cool 2D animation that tells the story of a sheep town being guarded by a kung fu dog being attacked by wolves. In order to keep the wolves from coming back he outlaws music, and of course his son Brody grows up wanting to be a musician so he goes to the big city to become a Rock Dog.

One of my favorite parts of the film is their concept of the rock park, a place in the city were musicians meet and perform. It's like a cross between Venice Beach and CBGBs. Really cool.

The animation was not that good nothing too great or unique, but I did love the story. The typical animation type of a animal that was met for one thing and is known for one thing, wanting to do something out of the norm, but that rock setting in which is goes over the clichés of Rock and Roll specifically that late 80s early 90s version in which the movie seems to be happening.

Plus a lot of real cool characters in the movie. My favorite being Angus Shattergood a cool cat voiced by Eddie Izzard who is the living persona of Rock and Roll.

My biggest pet peeve of the film is actually that the movie is really short. I mean really short. It was barely over an hour. Usually, when animated movies are that short they give us a animated short at the beginning of the film to make up for it. that did not happen this time. You can see the story coming to an end, and you think to yourself more is coming, but it does not.

So bland animation tells a great story so simple that it makes the movie seem short. For that I would wait for the DVD to come out to see it.

http://cinemagardens.com

Sure, it looked like a rip-off of animated movies came out from 2016, like Zootopia, Sing, or whatever, but it is actually worth watching it. It's a disappointing that everybody didn't like it, cause of the clichés, and it is predictable, but it's a movie that is good actually. Get the fact that this is a Chinese-American movie, and it is not made by the big companies and stuff like that. The story is a lil' bit flawed, but other than that, it's still good. And the song is great, though. (song name: Glorious)

My final rating 10/10. Great movie, maybe it's predictable and clichéd, but I guarantee it's a good movie for the whole family.

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.

I went to go see rock dog, having very little knowledge and expectations of the movie. After sitting in my chair for 90 min I thought "Despite some clichés, it was better then I hoped for it to be." I saw the movie to be more fun and heartfelt then funny but it does have humor the whole family can enjoy.

I saw the trailer for this, which played along with the trailer for Sing, which I think may have hurt the ratings for this partially. Both cliché movie ideas that BOTH turned out to be well done in the end.

I thought I wouldn't watch either, but did, but I do find I like this movie better than Sing- primarily because of Sing being another American Idol, Got Talent, etc reminiscent flick/show and piggybacking on that old hype. Rock Dog has clichés, but it's certainly more heartfelt and uplifting, you can't help but adore Bodi's cheerful attitude and blissful innocence.

(The last couple end songs were pretty good, too, which is also surprising.)

I give this movie a rating of 8 / 10 because I would have preferred perhaps a few different voice actors better suited and the animation models to have more variety within species- say, the crocodiles. Not that I expect it to be as diverse as the heavily funded Zootopia, which had each shown character/background character in the film with its own character sheet and specialized design/sculpt and even gait; I just wish there had been a bit more variation in some of the designs; it makes sense, I suppose, for the sheep to be over simplified to push the purposeful trope.

I digress. . .

It's a simple storyline that we've seen before with simple character models/sculpts, but it's heartfelt, sometimes comedic, with a bout of passion- it's a truly good feel movie that all ages can enjoy, I recommend it for a rainy day that needs a pep talk.

The film is entertaining and has positive messages of compassion shown by the Tibetan characters -including to their enemies- the wolves, however, all references to Buddhism were removed in the film. Creator Zheng Jun's original artistic vision is in the manga comic entitled "Tibetan Rock Dog". It is sad to me that "Tibetan" was removed from the title as well. As Zheng Jun is credited for the story as well as an executive producer I imagine it must have been difficult to see the culturally censored version be what was shared with the globe. Despite these issues which deserve to see the light this is an important film. I hope it will foster awareness of the Chinese Government's atrocities committed against native Tibetans. These continue to this day with no end in sight nor adequate help coming from countries which are able. The film shows Tibetan architecture, Tibetan rug making and even Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags which simply appear as colored flags without any Tibetan script or Buddhist symbols. Edited for artistic or political reasons? I hope viewers will "find their fire" and demand Tibetan Rock Dogs everywhere to Rock out for Tibet like Ad Rock showed us how. Get Rocking with this Tbetan Buddhist Manjushri mantra: Om A Ra Pa Ca Na Dhih ( Sanskrit) Om Ara Pa Za Na Di (Tibetan).

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.

It is good to see on a boring afternoon; the plot is generic and the animation is decent; it has some funny moments, but in the end it falls short when compared to other current animated films.

Yeah, just like what we say in our country on 'made in China', a poor and cheap quality product. It seems they never ever see the bright side in this business (making products). This is the Sino-US collaboration product and as usual the film was too poor. The animation was much better than some of the B animation features. But the universe was too small, or you can say restricted for certain enclosure makes it fall in as a bad film. That's when you observe the backgrounds, you would notice how substandard it is.

Visually and basic storyline seems not much different from other animated flicks. Because it kind of reminded me many awesome films from the recent past like it either be ' Kung Fu Panda' or 'Zootopia'. All about chasing the impossible dream and an inspiring theme. But still I believe the little kids like under 6-7 might enjoy it. Yeah, this is definitely not for the grown ups like most of the modern animated films are. That's a sad part, yet some adult would find it better.

The film was built on the most common clichéd platform. A young Tibetan sheepdog is not interested in what his kind destined to do. Instead, he's very much into the musics and after inspired by what the famous musician said, he embarks a journey that would decide his fate. So how his life going to change comes with the remaining parts. There were some nice comedies, but nothing tried hard to uplift film. From the beginning itself, it was so familiar, which did not give any space for a better improvement in the later parts. An average film, maybe below that, yet watchable one. Short film though, with the nice music.

4/10

Though the film juggles with multiple plots and cheap animation, the film manages It's way to your heart to put a smile on your face with It's charming characters and overused but still heart warming message.

So lets just Just jump right into the review Story: the story in this film is basically stealing ideas for other animated films like Zootopia and Kung Fu Panda but the huge Difference between those films and Rock Dog is that those films are good and even the parts of the film are just plain boring and predictable. Animation: the animation on this film is meh its not the worst but its definitely not good. Characters: the Characters are so bland i actually forgot them.

So in Conclusion Rock Dog is a Bland Kids Film that's so predictable and boring. Personal Score 4/10

Critic Score Story 3/10 Characters 3/10 Animation 5/10 Overall Critic Score 4/10 Seal of Bad

It sucked lol it was just like 20 cliches compiled into one movie but it was funny. The best character was angus scattergood, i guess hes supposed to be ozzy osbourne. I liked it im looking forward to see how bad the next one it lol.

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 movie was given no promotion whatsoever in Australia and so I watched this with my children (14 and 11) with no expectations.

While the movie didn't break any new ground, it was entertaining, family-friendly and quite fun overall. The kids enjoyed it and there was enough humour to keep the parents happy too. When I came online to recommend it, I was quite shocked to see the low ratings and critical reviews - although the financial flop explains why it never made it to cinemas or even rated a mention locally.

Rock Dog isn't brilliant - this isn't 'Kubo' or a Pixar classic. But it's fun, family entertainment and for that audience, it's definitely worth a watch.

The movie is ok. I'm just amazed that the people behind it seem to really not know what rock and roll is.

"Rock Dog" had its moments, but it ultimately left me underwhelmed. While the film showcased some endearing characters and a decent musical backdrop, its weakness lies in its predictable storyline and lackluster execution. The cinematography and visuals were passable, but nothing extraordinary, failing to create a truly immersive world. The acting felt a bit uninspired, which diminished the emotional depth of the characters. Although the music was a highlight, it couldn't fully compensate for the movie's other shortcomings. Overall, "Rock Dog" earns a 5/10 from me, as it falls short in delivering the engaging and captivating experience I had hoped for.

"Rock Dog" is a little known animation that had an uphill battle to become noteworthy. It was made by a consortium of studios with a budget of $60,000,000. Compare that to other animations made in 2016 such as "Finding Dory" by Disney-Pixar with a budget of around $200,000,000, or "The Secret Life of Pets" by Illumination with a budget of around $75,000,000, or "Sing," also by Illumination, with a budget also of $75,000,000, "Rock Dog" just didn't have the bona fides to make it big.

That's not to say it wasn't good, because it was, it was just going to struggle to be known. I, for one, am glad I found it.

The main character of this animation was Bodi (Luke Wilson), a sheep herding dog who's father, Khampa (J. K. Simmons), wanted to groom him to take over the sheep protecting duties. Khampa was a legendary dog who used a powerful martial arts move to fend off wolves. Bodi just wanted to rock.

Khampa granted Bodi his wish when he allowed him to travel to the city to chase his dream of being a musician. While in the city Bodi tried desperately to get the attention, and potentially music lessons from his musical idol Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard). As Bodi was pestering Angus for lessons, the wolf boss, Linnux (Lewis Black), had two of his minions trying to nab Bodi to use him as a means to get to the sheep.

There were several overlapping themes in this musical movie. The most pervasive themes are oft-repeated ones: finding one's own talent and accepting a person for who they are. The movie would've been truly lame if those two themes were very dominant, but they weren't, they just were the most poignant. The music was good, the characters were funny, and it was all clean, therefore I liked it.