Movie Thoughts: Rock Dog (2016)

• Released: 15 June 2016
• Directed by: Ash Brannon
• Running time: 1 h 30 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A musical Tibetan mastiff tries to become a rockstar in the big city, while a group of wolves is looking to invade his hometown of sheep.

My Thoughts

I've been meaning to see this one since it first came out but just never did. But now it's on the Dutch version of Netflix, so I finally gave it a go. And it's...okay. Just okay.

What really stood out to me in this movie is Eddie Izzard's performance as Angus Scattergood, a rockstar who is full of himself but has a good heart. He was a fun character and had a fun performance by her, but all of the other characters honestly just kind of fell flat to me.

I can say that I am glad that they didn't force in a romance between Bodi and Darma, one of his eventual bandmates. They're on friendly terms from the start, but this story really wouldn't have benefited from a romantic subplot especially since it already has quite a bit going on.

The animation was...decent. It's okay for what you get. The character designs did lack a believable fur texture, though. I could always tell that this was just a computer's idea of animal fur, not actual well-rendered fur. Also, there's way too many re-used character designs. Not just the wolf minions, but also Bodi's sheep hometown literally all uses the exact same model sans two or three characters. 

I also thought that the character design of the head sheep was a bit confusing, he looked way more like a bull than a ram, when he was clearly supposed to be one. Finally, since Bodi and his father are Tibetan mastiffs, it's very disappointing so see that they are kept short-haired. Have you ever seen a real Tibetan mastiff? They purposefully have an incredibly long and thick fur similar to a lion's mane that protects them from injury when attacked by wolves. Yet in this movie they for whatever reason keep their fur short, purposefully? I get cutting hair that falls in front of your eyes, but getting rid of fur that has a literal biological reason and will actually benefit your job (protecting the sheep) is just weird. Bode does have some longer fur on his head, but it's constantly covered up by his silly hat. My guess for the lack of long fur is budget reasons, but it's very disappointing.

So while I wasn't a huge fan of this movie, I wouldn't call it bad, either. Just decent. Angus was the real selling point for me.