AN ALL DOGS CHRISTMAS CAROL is a cheaply produced made-for-video cartoon that's a dreadful bit of humbuggery. The film is about as much fun as finding a lump of coal in your stocking on Christmas Day.
A wicked witch dog named Belladonna (voice of Bebe Neuwirth) has her evil dog assistants, Carface (voice of Ernest Borgnine) and Killer (voice of Charles Nelson Reilly), use a special dog whistle to put all of the town's dogs under her spell. After Carface steals some money that has been collected
for an operation for a lame puppy named Timmy (voice of Taylor Emerson), a brave dog named Charlie (voice of Steven Weber) and his pal Itchy (voice of Dom DeLuise) unsuccessfully try to get it back, and they learn that Belladonna is plotting to stop Christmas by building a gigantic dog whistle to
be used on Christmas Eve to make all the dogs steal presents from their masters. Charlie and Itchy decide to imitate Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" to frighten Carface, and they, along with Charlie's girlfriend Sasha (voice of Sheena Easton) pretend to be ghosts. The ploy works, and when Belladonna
tries to use the dog whistle on Christmas Eve, Carface stops her. Belladonna's cousin, an angel dog named Anabella (voice of Bebe Neuwirth), destroys Belladonna. Christmas is saved and Carface dresses as Santa Claus to deliver presents to all of the dogs.
AN ALL DOGS CHRISTMAS CAROL not only besmirches the memory of Dickens's immortal tale, which has already been subjected to far too many feeble variations, but also makes the very mediocre original ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN (1989) look like a classic Disney cartoon feature from the 1930s or '40s.
Indeed, the animation (and that's a dubious term in this case) is so crude, coarse, and unimaginative that it makes contemporary Saturday morning cartoons look like the work of artistic geniuses by comparison, while the most rudimentary CD-ROMs are possessed of more fluid motion and sophisticated
design. The movement is so slow and jerky that the script even has to justify it at one point, when Sasha says to the gimpy Timmy, "I hope I'm walking slow enough for you." Instead of wasting funds on the requisite group of annoying and superfluous songs, the producers should have given more money
to the Taiwanese animation company that actually did most of the artwork. About the only entertainment value the film has to offer--at least for anyone over the age of three--is the chance to hear the gravelly-voiced Ernest Borgnine warble a couple of tunes, including a charming little holiday
ditty about how, when Carface was a pup, he was kicked out of his master's house for going wee-wee all over the Christmas tree, which is duly presented in a touching and colorful flashback. leave a comment
