You know, I was at the box office window…and keep in mind, I was only there out of extreme boredom, not because I had a hankering to catch anything that was playing…and in my head I kept tossing up Home On The Range and Ella Enchanted. Finally I decided to go with HOTR, because I figured it was the more significant film, due it being the supposed last of Disney’s traditionally animated features. I guess that’s true, but the true distinction goes to BROTHER BEAR, as BB was a typical Disney “masterpiece”, while HOTR was one of those “second tier” flicks that was more of a direct to video quality.
Besides, a studly, exceptionally hetero male like myself has no business watching Ella Enchanted by himself in a theater full of giggling preteen girls!
(I’ll rent it when the DVD drops though…Anne Hathaway is hot!)

And so it came to be that this “reviewer” witnessed the end of an era, as Disney’s traditional animation came to a screeching halt, and faded away, not with a bang, but with a tepid whimper. I was so bored during most of HOTR that I considered leaving, or more likely, sitting it out but then not writing a review. Just panning it briefly somewhere in my journal.
But I’m loyal to the one or two folks that actually visit my site, and so I’m writing this review.

From the commercials alone, it was obvious that Home On The Range was gonna be “funny” Disney, as opposed to “poignant” Disney. Fine.
Problem though…it wasn’t funny. I think I let out one of those half sniff - half one-syllable laughs at one point, but other than that, nothing.
The cast, which was led by Roseanne Barr, Jennifer Tilly, and Judi Dench, did a nice job, but nobody came anywhere near the level of an Ellen Degeneres in FINDING NEMO…not that that would be an easy achievement. I also had a problem with the art style, as it looked to be the quality of typical Cartoon Network stuff. Not very cinematic at all, you know? Why bother caring for a bunch of ugly cows? I dunno.

So is this really it for traditional animation in the house that Mickey built?
I wanna say, “No”. It might be it for a while, but I can just imagine that when everybody tires of the ubiquitous computer animation that’ll be the norm, someone will have the novel idea of reinventing the wheel and starting from scratch. Here’s to hoping anyway…