Oct 5, 2014

Watch 2 minutes of DreamWorks' unwatchable "Rocky & Bullwinkle" short film!

Gary Trousdale, director of "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Bells of Notre Dame," directed the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" short "Another Fine Moose You've Gotten Me Into, or The Man In The Iron Moose" at DreamWorks last year. The following 2-minute long clip was released a few days ago by Entertainment Weekly.

I would like to use this as Exhibit A in my lawsuit against CG excesses. There is a tremendous amount of garbage strewn about in the background. Objects that do not fit into the action frame are placed haphazardly, and the characters in the background are jerking around so vigorously that the actions of the main characters are almost unreadable. The real question, however, is why add this stuff? If they designed their films more wisely and efficiently, studios would not only save a lot of money, they would also make better films.

There are many obvious things wrong with this clip. Tone-wise, it falls far short of capturing the spirit of Jay Ward's character, but ignoring the character's legacy does not make it any better. The clichéd facial expressions of the leads are stiff and inorganic, and the action is timed incorrectly for comedic impact. I don't know what goes on behind the scenes of the production, but the whole thing feels like a reckless workout for DreamWorks' foreign studios. Watching this clip, which takes up almost half of the film's five-minute running time, one can understand DreamWorks' reluctance to release this short film.