A Romeo Robin (1930) User Reviews (3)

Listen to the mockingbird

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 6 January 2018]

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.

'A Romeo Robin' is among neither of the best Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons or the worst, though when it first started first impressions were that it would be among the latter. Instead it's somewhere in the lower middle, mildly watchable and far from terrible, being elevated to something a little better by the second half, but rather bland and uneven.

Like most cartoons in the series, the animation is really not great. It's even not good, the worst of it downright bad with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.

The first half does not give a good first impression, with all the flaws mentioned a lot by me in my previous reviews for the previous cartoons in the series apparent. On top of being poorly animated with bland characters, there was a serious lack of energy, next to no gags (any that were noticeably amusing or memorable anyhow) and it was just aimless and random. Only the music worked.

Fortunately for 'A Romeo Robin' things do pick up in the second half, where the energy becomes more lively, a couple of moments amuse and make one go aw and there is more of a story that, even though basic and formulaic as heck, at least made more sense.

Sadly, the animation is still not good and the characters never properly engage. The cartoon also feels disjointed, a case of two halves that feel completely far removed from each other that there are two 3-4 minute cartoons in one.

It is good though that throughout the synchronisation is not too bad.

Best of all, and the only outstanding asset, is the music score, it is typically peppy and great fun to listen to. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.

On the whole, mildly watchable but bland, uneven and a very disconcertingly strange case of two wildly different halves. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Paired Dancing and a Little Romance

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 4 December 2018]

I have seen so many of these episode where half the show is a couple of birds, or elephants, or whatever, dancing in unison. The problem is that they stopped extending their abilities to produce filler. The second half of this is the usual guy trying to impress the girl. Why two birds would choose to fly a plane and get all worked up when it goes down is interesting. After all, they are birds! They fly. Just a kind of bland effort this time.

A Musical In The First Half; Comedic Adventure In The Second

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 18 August 2007]

A happy-go-lucky musical where various characters, mostly birds I guess (tough to tell with all dressed up in hats and clothes), play instruments, sing or dance. The instruments could be anything from real ones to gigantic corn stalks where the corns are used as piano keys. Birds dance and they change from young to old to the grave as they dance. Weird stuff, and one reason I enjoy the early '30s cartoons. Many of them are bizarre.

However, there is a problem: it really wasn't much humor in here, and after three or four minutes it needed a spark. They must have known this so, suddenly we a story: one of the birds trying to catch a slippery worm and then impressing his girlfriend. All the "talking" is done with whistling.

Only in cartoons, of course, can you see a long worm being used as an engine for an airplane! (Don't ask.) This second half of this wound up to be a pretty wild adventure and fun to watch.