Movie Thoughts: Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys (2001)

• Released: October 30, 2001
  
• Directed by: William R. Kowalchuk Jr.
• Running time: 1 h 14 min
• Rating 1/5

Synopsis

Rudolph and his friends team up to bust a toy-kidnapping thief before Christmas comes around.

My Thoughts

Okay, full disclosure, I have never seen the original Rankin/Bass Rudolph special this movie is a sequel to. Both because I don't think it has an official release in my country and because it just looks unappealing to me. This movie, however, I did grow up with. As you probably know I've reviewed the Goodtimes' Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer: The Movie on here before. Because Misfit Toys, for whatever reason, was marketed in the Netherlands as the sequel to that movie (1998 Rudolph) and not the original Rankin/Bass special, I did see it. It was very confusing for me as a child, because there's all these new characters and design changes, so it's a baffling decision they made.

Either way, I didn't like this movie much as a kid, and as an adult I think I just hate it. This movie kills the Christmas spirit to me. God it's just so awful.

Let's start with the most obvious: the visuals. This is a CGI movie, but it should not have been. Considering the time this came out and the budget, this just looks godawful and unpolished. I have legit seen cut-scenes for the Playstation with more polish and better animation than this. Genuinely, since it is abundantly clear they couldn't really do what they had in mind for the animation with this budget and the technology of the time, they really should've used a different animation medium. Ultimately stop-motion like the original Rankin/Bass release would've been the best, but they even could've gone 2D like the earlier Goodtimes movie, it still would've looked a whole lot better than this.

The CGI just looks unpolished and unfinished even. Most models lack texture (and the ones that do, such as the Bumble, look awful), the models are inexpressive, the animation is sloppy, with a lot of mistakes and clipping errors. The kite is clearly always facing forwards when speaking with his mouth because if you look closely you'll see you can see his mouth and teeth clip through his backside (hence why they use a different model when he's facing backwards). Some models barely look rigged because they do not blink or emote at all. This movie also seems to be very selective with giving characters teeth, because Rudolph and Clarice don't have them but some other reindeer do. It just feels unfinished, that's just the only way I can describe it. 

The plot itself makes for a decent Christmas story, but the execution once again just kind of sucks. It doesn't feel exciting (except for the climax), it's just mostly our characters going places looking for the Toytaker until they managed to get him to capture them as a part of their plan. But those scenes of Rudolph and Hermey just going from island to island is just rather boring.

Also, the songs and voice acting, don't get me started on those. I've rarely heard songs in a movie that are so unpleasant and repetitious to the ears. They notes are not off-key per se, but the voices of some of the characters are so annoying and nasal that their talking and especially their singing is a pain to listen to. Seriously, so there's so many characters in this who talk nasally it's really just overkill. Rudolph is voiced by the same person as is Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer: The Movie, but there he (or she, considering the VA is female) did not sound this annoying and nasally. 

I also just feel that this movie's message is a bit...eh. Okay, first of all, the focus lies heavily on the presents for the children being gone. Isn't the whole point of Christmas more so the Christmas spirit and being together than just getting presents? I know Christmas is already a super materialistic holiday, but this message isn't helping. Sure, it sucks that some children lost their toys, but it's not the end of the world. 

The second part of the message feels even more confused to me, however. In the end, the villain, the Toytaker, is revealed to be a beaten-up old teddy bear who was discarded by his old owner and now steals the toys to prevent them from being hurt like this. Basically he feels like a walking Toy Story 2 plot point, to the point it's almost too similar to me. But what's worse, after being revealed, the teddy bear is actually rewarded for his actions just because he had a sad backstory. 

Never mind the fact that he's a thief, and worse yet, a kidnapper (considering all toys are sapient and sentient in this world), him singing a sad song doesn't just earn him forgiveness, it also gets him a reward as he is given to a loving home again. What kind of message is that? "Do the evil shit you want, you'll be rewarded for it if you just sing a sad enough song about your backstory"? That's just a godawful message to send to your impressionable audience. He doesn't work for his forgiveness, he never apologizes to the toys he kidnapped for what he did. Such a confused moral.

So this movie overall just has barely anything going for it. The characters are very one-note, the voice acting and songs grating, the visuals awful, and the overall moral confused and too materialistic. Skip this one. I think this will be my final time watching this movie.