Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie

In 2014 on the day after Easter, I wrote a review on the classic Rankin/Bass Stop-Motion Easter Special "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" that I remember enjoying as a kid. And still, to this day, I find myself enjoying the Special with its likable characters who are voiced by outstanding actors. Catchy songs that I always find myself humming as an adult. And above all, having the whole Special take place on many Holidays tied together to a fun Easter Bunny themed story. When I bought the DVD of the Special awhile back, to my surprise, there was a straight-to-DVD sequel of the Special made in 2005 called...

The DVD copy of the classic Rankin/Bass Easter Special that I own played itself more as a promotional tool for the sequel than it did as a re-release to an Easter classic. Why do I say this? Well, for starters, there's a special promotional behind the scenes trailer to the sequel that can only be accessed before reaching to the DVD's main menu. There's a Special Feature on the DVD where you can view a clip of one of the musical numbers in the sequel. And on top of it, the DVD box itself even promotes that the DVD includes a sneak peek of the Special's sequel. It can't get any more evident than that. As I took a look at the trailer, while I found the casting of voice actors such as Christopher Lloyd, Roger Moore, Molly Shannon, and Tom Kenny to be amusing choices; the film itself didn't seem too pleasing. The CGI animation looked creepy. The casting of voice actors didn't seem like the right choice to fill in the shoes for the previous actors who voiced these characters. The overall modern-day look and feel with its music and humor just didn't seem to match the atmosphere or world that the original Special had created. And the film just seemed like a manipulative marketing tool purely made for the money than it was paying a loving tribute to one of the most fabulous Easter Specials of all time. However, since the DVD that I have loves to promote the crap out of this sequel, I've decided to review the sequel this Easter to see if it's as bad as I thought it was going to be. Is the sequel a cheap cash-grab that came out too late? ON WITH THE REVIEW!

Peter Cottontail, who is now officially the new Chief Easter Bunny of "April Valley," has a son named Junior.  Junior spends most of his time making inventions that don't work rather than attending to his duty at the factory where they make Easter Candy. Peter decides to give his son the critical job of cleaning the "The Clock Of Spring" (Which is a magical clock that provides us with Spring) to get his mind off of making silly inventions (Which I'm sure that Junior won't screw-up that job). As Peter is having issues with his son, Peter's arch-enemy Irontail returns to "April Valley" (Which makes no sense since the last time we saw him, he became a member of the "April Valley Sanitation Department"). Only this time, he teams up with the mischievous Jackie Frost the Snow Fairy to sabotage the "The Clock Of Spring," as well as all the other clocks of different seasons to spread a permanent Winter. They succeed with their plan of sabotaging "The Clock Of Spring" thanks to Junior being easily manipulated by Irontail (A rabbit who looks and acts so unpleasant that kids in the original Special were smart enough to avoid him). Feeling guilty, Junior runs away from "April Valley" to try to set things right. Along the way, he meets a young Robin who has trouble flying; a mouse who loves to eat almost anything; a goofy talking cloud; and his father's old Peddler friend Seymour S. Sassafrass (And no Junior does not use Sassafrass' time machine that was used in the original Special to prevent Irontail from destroying the Clock, nor is it even mentioned).



Christopher Lloyd narrates the film as the magical Peddle Seymour S. Sassafrass that Danny Kaye voiced in the original Special, and aahhh man, what did they do to you Seymour? He looks like the Mad Hatter from "Alice In Wonderland" who suddenly decided to dye his hair green. He looks nothing like the Willy Wonka like Peddler that Danny Kaye had voiced in the original Special. I'm guessing the reason why they changed his design was that the original character was modeled after the actor who voiced him and probably didn't have the right to use Kaye's likeness to the role. While I understand the reason for why they had to change the character's image and voice, did they really have to make him the same character? Wouldn't it make more sense to have this character be some kind of relative to the original person, instead of completely changing the character's image and hiring an actor who sounds and acts nothing like the character that we're familiar with? I just find it incredibly hard to buy that this is supposed to be the same character that we met from the original Special. I will, however, give Lloyd credit for acting for the most part subtle instead of resorting to his over the top eccentric self, even if it isn't enough to save this out of character portrayal of Seymour S. Sassafrass. Believe me when I say that if Lloyd was voicing a completely different character in this sequel, I honestly would be okay with it since his performance is pretty decent.



Voicing both our leading character Junior and his father Peter is Tom Kenny who's famous for voicing many iconic cartoon characters, including the famous Nicktoon Spongebob Squarepants! While Kenny has voiced characters that you wouldn't have guessed were voiced by the same guy who voiced Spongebob, here you do get that impression, especially for his portrayal of Junior. It's not just that his voice sounds very identical to his Spongebob character. It's also because the character's goofy, optimistic, and childlike personality is very similar (Though not as over the top) to Spongebob's personality. Plus giving the character giant bright blue eyes along with those big buck teeth doesn't help much either. It's pretty distracting for how similar the design resembles Spongebob. Even without noticing the similarities between these two characters, the character himself is not that interesting either. Though it could be worse, at least Junior isn't as obnoxious as Spongebob is in the later seasons of the show. As for Kenny's portrayal of the character Peter Cottontail, he hardly ever captures the spirit, the cuteness, and the charm of the original character. I guess it is because his character has matured and grew-up since time has passed after the events from the first Special. But even with that being the case, I still don't find myself buying that this is the same Peter Cottontail from the original Special. In fact, why not get the original actor Casey Kasem to voice Peter again? He was still doing voice-overs at the time of the film's release, and it would seem like a welcoming return for him to voice the Easter Bunny that we grew up watching. I'm not saying casting Kasem is going to save the Special, but at least he would capture a little bit of the spirit from the classic Rankin/Bass Easter Special if he were cast for the role.

 

Filling in the shoes of Vincent Price as the villain Irontail is former Bond actor Roger Moore. As interested as I was in seeing a Bond actor play a scheming over the top villain that was once voiced by the incredible Vincent Price, the pay-off was pretty disappointing. While Moore does carry the class and elegance that Irontail had in the original Special, he doesn't have that vicious and nasty personality that Price gave to the character in every single scene he's in. He acts way too calm and collected and doesn't even laugh as much as Price did in the original Special, which feels entirely out of character. When we're first introduced to Irontail, we get a forced James Bond reference of him saying "The name's Tail, Irontail" as we hear Bond-like music in the background before his reveal! That doesn't sound like something that the character would say in the original Special! That was just a forced inside joke thrown in to make the reference since Moore was famous for playing James Bond. Voicing his partner in crime, Jackie Frost is SNL star Molly Shannon, who is just a cheap knock-off of Jack Frost that carries a very wooden personality that's hardly ever funny. The chemistry that she and Moore share is pretty dull too. The only time I ever found the two of them fun together is when Jackie Frost questions if Irontail was actually his real name. And while it was funny at first, the joke suddenly got ruined when we find out that his real name was Fluffy which becomes a cheap running gag throughout the Special. Also the joke itself is very confusing, since the original Special already gave him a name which was January Q. Irontail. Shouldn't she be asking what Irontail's last name originally was, since he already has a first name? I also didn't like the idea of showing Irontail's origins story in the style of a home movie. That just felt like a desperate attempt to get a laugh.

The rest of the characters from the original Special don't resemble the characters we remember that much either. The caterpillar Antoine who we last saw as a butterfly in the original Special, is now suddenly back to being a caterpillar who has turned purple and is up to scale with the rest of the bunnies in "April Valley" for unexplained reasons. Did anybody making the film try to call out on this distracting flaw? Did they not care or remember that Antoine turned into a butterfly who was not up to scale with the rest of the characters? Kenny, by the way, also does the voice for Antoine, and he is sadly nowhere near as funny or as likable as the character was in the original. Antoine's presence just feels there as more of an afterthought. Another original character from the previous Special who appears in this sequel is Irontail's bat-henchman, Montresor. And just like Antoine, he too has a totally different design, who is now for some reason too small for Irontail to ride on, which I'm sure that nobody ever remembers seeing him ride around on his trusty bat-henchman in the first Special. When it comes to the new cast of supporting characters, I honestly didn't find any of them charming. The little Robin, who has trouble flying that is supposed to be a kid, is voiced by Kenan Thompson, who sounds way too grown-up to be voicing something that's supposed to be young, cute, and innocent. And the humor that he provides with his loud and obnoxious personality is far from ever being funny. We then have Miranda Cosgrove as the little mouse Munch who surprisingly does fit her character fine, but unfortunately, the character herself is nothing special. Even her running gag of wanting to eat everything that's supposed to give this character some kind of identity feels pretty downplayed. The cloud of Wind that tries to help the characters on the journey voiced by David Koechner is just as obnoxious as Thompson is with voicing his character, and with a completely ridiculous design, as opposed to being creative. He almost looks like the Octopus (With Dopey's goofy face from "Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs") who serves the drinks at the bar in "Ink And Paint Club" in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". As for the other characters like Peter's assistant, Junior's two bunny friends; Peter's Wife (Who isn't Donna); and the Penguin henchmen that work for the two villains. I hardly remember any of them since they leave little to no impression of how lacking they are in terms of character, humor, and on-screen appearance.

 

Now I will admit, as crude-looking as the CGI is, it's not the worst. Its bright and colorful, the 2-D animation backgrounds with the CGI animated characters in the center of it looks decent, and some of the winter scenes do look pretty nice. And I'm not going to completely fault the CGI for looking crude either because the Stop-Motion for the original Special, while it did create it's own unique look and feel (Like all the other Rankin/Bass Stop-Motion Specials). The use of Stop-Motion was also pretty crude looking as well! What I do however fault the CGI animation for is for how little the character designs and the world itself resemble the original Special that this Special is a continuation of (That comes complete with clips from the original Special, incase if you forgot what the first Special looked like!). In a computer-animated sequel to another famous Rankin/Bass Special Holiday Special, which was "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer And The Island Of Misfit Toys" that came out a few years before this Special for example. Despite that the sequel was animated in CGI, and made decades a few after the original Special. It for the most part stayed true to the character's original designs and world where they live in, as they found voice actors who sounded like the original actors that previously voiced them. They were also smart enough to replace the Burl Ives Snowman with a different Snowman character, since they either couldn't use Ive's likeness, or find a voice actor who sounded exactly like him. In this CGI animated sequel to a famous Holiday Special created by Rankin/Bass, this Special doesn't do any of the things that the CGI animated sequel to "Rudolph" did. The designs for the characters, aside from a few tiny features that resemble the original character, all look totally different. The voice actors they hired sound and act nothing like the original characters that we remember. And the land of "April Valley" looks 100% different from the one shown in the previous Special. I also find the animation for the giant eyes on the characters to be incredibly soulless. When it comes to songs, I'm not going to waste my time talking about them since they all just sound like bland modern-day Pop-tunes that sound the same, and don't at all fit within the film's fantasy world! It also doesn't help either that the last scene of the movie involves the characters playing a modern rock version of the song "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" with instruments as a way to try to appeal to its young and hip crowd!

My overall instincts on this CGI sequel being bad based on my viewings of the trailer were exactly right! As much as this Special references the original Special, it fails to capture the spirit of it. The designs for the characters and its fantasy world hardly ever looks like the original designs that were created in the original Special. The voice acting while not all that bad, they still don't sound anything like the characters that we know and love. Every single song in this Special suck and feel out of place with its modern-day use of Pop-Music. The humor is dull and obnoxious. And the new characters and locations that we encounter (Including the new design for "April Valley) are very bland. However, as much as I despise this Special for failing as a sequel, I honestly don't think this is one of the worst things that I've ever seen. It's terrible and fails on so many levels as being a continuation to an Easter Special that I hold close to my heart, but there's nothing in it that I find to be that insultingly cringe-worthy, or annoyingly irritating about it for that matter. I can't even say that it was all that dull or boring either! There are indeed much worse sequels out there that I can think of that make me sick to my stomach for how bad and insulting they are. This film is just a poorly put together bland sequel that doesn't deserve to exist, but it in the very least, has, for the most part, a harmless and cute look and feel to it with some beautiful colorful animation and decent voice acting. It's still a bad movie that I don't at all recommend (Especially to fans of the classic Stop-Motion Special), but it's nowhere near 0 out of five bad either.

RATING 1/5

LEPRECHAUN 2

It's St.Paddy's day and after reviewing a classic St.Paddy's day film that I fairly enjoyed last year, this year I'm going to review a sequel to one of my favorite horror guilty pleasures that I love to watch around this time year, which is...



Despite that the first film was a critical flop, it surprisingly did financially well at the box-office since many people enjoyed Warwick Davis' performance as the Leprechaun even though he wasn't scary. In fact, in the same exact year when this film was released, even Mike Myers and Dana Carvey talked about the film and made fun of it in their film "Wayne's World 2". So with the film doing financially well and people talking about how fun and entertaining Warwick Davis was as the Leprechaun, a sequel was made exactly a year after the film's release to cash-in on its success, with Warwick Davis' reprising his role as the Leprechaun. Since the film is a sequel to an awful and goofy movie that's hardly ever scary where it would be impossible to make frightening in a sequel considering how over the top Davis and his character was in the first film; is the sequel at least just as enjoyably entertaining as the first film was with possibly a few improvements, or is it just a plain dreadful cash-grab sequel where Davis' performance isn't as enjoyable as he was in the first film; ON WITH THE REVIEW!

The film starts out on St.Paddy's Day 994 A.D. in Ireland, where the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) has just turned a thousand years old and is finally allowed to claim a bride as he promises his human slave (Who the Leprechaun captured for trying to steal his gold) to set him free if he helps him find a woman and doesn't interfere with the process of using his powers to claim a helpless woman as his bride. His slave agrees to do so, that is until he discovers that the woman that the Leprechaun plans to marry happens to be his own daughter. As the Leprechaun nearly succeeds with gaining a bride, his slave stops him and now the Leprechaun for some reason must wait another thousand years to gain a bride, but vows to marry a descendant of his slave as revenge for his interference before he kills him. A thousand years later, the Leprechaun goes to modern day L.A. during St.Paddy's Day to marry a young descendant of his former slave named Bridget (Shevonne Durkin) and succeeds with making her his bride and takes her to his evil lair where she'll be serving him for the rest of her life. However, when the Leprechaun discovers that Bridget's boyfriend Cody (Charlie Heath) has taken a gold coin from him, the Leprechaun goes out in search for Cody to get his gold back, as Cody takes on the Leprechaun to free his girlfriend from him.

 

Remember how silly and stupid the first film's overall tone was while also having logic that hardly makes any sense? Well this film definitely has its fair share amount of over the top stupidity and confusing logic, especially when being a sequel to an already stupid movie! For starters, the method of how the Leprechaun claims a woman to be his bride is by making the woman sneeze three times without someone saying "God bless you", which has got to be one of the most ridiculous rules of a villain with magical powers enslaving a person that I have ever seen in a horror film! I mean seriously, a girl sneezes three times and boom that automatically makes her the Leprechaun's Wife, what sense does that make? Wouldn't it make more sense for the Leprechaun to use a magic ring to claim her, or his magical powers to simply just capture her and take her away? I mean sneezing that's the best that the writers can come up with? Well if that piece of logic isn't stupid enough for you, remember in the first film how a Four-Leafed Clover can kill a Leprechaun? Well in this film its iron! It not only goes against the logic that was developed in the first film, but come on iron, that's the Leprechaun's Kryptonite? I can buy a Four-Leafed Clover being an evil Leprechaun's weakness since it's supposed to bring good luck to those who use it, but iron, really? The Leprechaun can take abuse from anything, except for iron? It makes no sense. Also, remember in the first film when Mark Holton accidentally swallows one of the Leprechaun's gold coins which causes the Leprechaun to take off one of the buckles on his shoes to use it to slice Holton's belly opened? Well it now turns out that carrying a piece of the Leprechaun's gold can protect you from him! Did the people making this movie actually pay attention when watching the first movie? To make this ignored logic from the first movie more confusing, despite that the Leprechaun's gold can now suddenly protect you from being killed by him, even when carrying the gold coin the main character still finds himself to be in life threatening danger! The film's logic is just driving me insane the more I think about it!



Now there are two theories of why the film ignores the logic and events that happened in the first film. While some would say that this film isn't really a direct sequel or a prequel to the first film since it acts more as a stand-alone movie just with the same character, many would say that it's a different Leprechaun who's just played once again by Warwick Davis. In many respects I can see that since he has a pot full of gold where he stores all the gold that he steals, instead of carrying a bag full of 100 gold coins. He claimed that was 600 years old in the first film, when in this film he's 2,000 years old, with a completely different back-story. And he can do more with his magic like create illusions, instead of just mimicking voices and making himself magically appear out of nowhere. Now if he is a different Leprechaun, then why not get a different actor to play the villain? The most obvious answer is because not many people would see the sequel if Warwick Davis wasn't playing a Leprechaun like he did in the first movie, which I guess must mean that all Leprechauns in these two films resemble Warwick Davis. That's pretty confusing if you ask me, because if all Leprechauns look and sound alike then how can they tell each other apart? Plus whether Davis is playing a different Leprechaun or not, it still doesn't excuse the amount of times when the film goes against the rules that were both established in this film and previous one. The first film literally set-up the rules for not just one Leprechaun, but for every Leprechaun in general that exists in the film's world. And considering that we see a Leprechaun in this film that not only resembles the first Leprechaun but carries the same traits by having him going after his stolen gold coin and briefly shining shoes on one or two occasions, you'd think that the same rules would apply to this one as well. On top of it, the first film ended with a bit of a cliffhanger implying that the Leprechaun is still alive and will be back to take back his gold back. So despite that the ending of the first film was leading up to a possible sequel, this sequel doesn't even take advantage of where the previous film left off by instead just giving us a completely different Leprechaun even though he is played by the same exact actor, which is without a doubt in my mind a completely missed and wasted opportunity!



Much like how Davis was hardly ever scary in the first film; in this film he is 100% not scary at all. In the first film I at least found Davis as the Leprechaun a bit unsettling in earlier scenes of the movie when he's in the shadows and mimics a voice of a trapped little in a dark room; but in this film, aside from the cool and creepy looking Make-Up, he's miles away from scary. In fact, the film never even builds up to his presence and reveal like the first film did, we see him right away acting all comical and over the top! Even the way he murders and injures people as gory as they are, are actually pretty funny in its own twisted way than they are scary. I swear every time I watch Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun on-screen either killing people or threatening them, I wasn't at all intimidated by him! If anything I felt like sitting at a bar with this crazy Leprechaun to hear him talk about how much he loves gold as he gets drunk, and yes there's a scene in the movie where the Leprechaun gets wasted in a bar full of screaming little people cheering for him, where he later on has to go to a Coffee Bar to sober up as he lies on the couch looking sick as he drinks 4 cups of Coffee. Oh yeah, he’s really terrifying! The only audience that Davis' performance as the Leprechaun can ever scare are children! I think the only scene in the movie where the Leprechaun is almost close to being scary is when he sexually harasses Bridget, but even that's not scary, disturbing, or funny for that matter, it's just uncomfortably awkward! The way the film is shot, paced, and edited doesn't help make Davis' over the top portrayal of the Leprechaun chilling either. When we see the Leprechaun fight against Cody in Bridget's house for example, the pacing and editing looks and feels so rushed that the timing for when Cody and the Leprechaun get injured feels completely off where it doesn't at all look humorous or feel painful. There are even times in the film where the camera shakes so much that it almost looks as if that the person holding the camera is having trouble keeping it still. The jump scares and twists aren't even scary or surprising either, they're very predictable, especially in the scenes when the Leprechaun creates a vision of Bridget to fool the characters into doing his bidding; and the moments of suspense that lead into jump scares where you can easily tell when it;s going to be the Leprechaun and when it's going to be false; and why should we be afraid if the Leprechaun is going to pop-out, he's too funny to be afraid of! If anything, we want to see him pop-out, so we can spend more time laughing at him for how not scary he is!



The bright side to the film (Especially in terms of not following continuity to the first film) is that we at least don’t have to see those annoying idiotic characters from the first film. Now are the characters and actors portraying them in this film any better, for the most part no. The characters are all cardboard cut-out cliches. A lot of the extras in the film such as the people that Cody scams, "Mad TV's" Michael McDonald as the Coffee Shop manager, and Tony Cox's cameo as the little drunk giving chocolate coins for example, are just as annoying as the characters in the first movie. There's a bully who wants Cody's girlfriend who's hardly ever given any time to shine as a bully, or even an obstacle since he literally gets killed off a few scenes after we meet him. And the character Bridget is not only just your typical hot but boring damsel in distress who's very shallow, but the actress playing her can't act for her life for how fake and at times unemotional her reactions towards the Leprechaun and her boyfriend being in danger are. But I'll admit as bad as the characters and performances in the film are, they're honestly not that bad, especially when compared to the characters in the first movie. The characters in the first movie were so boring, so annoying, and so idiotic, that I was begging for the Leprechaun to kill each and every last one of them, so he can successfully retrieve his gold. There seriously wasn't a single character in that whole movie who I actually gave a crap about, not even so much as an extra! With this film on the other hand, there was one character who I enjoyed and cared if he would live or die and that's Cody's comical Uncle Morty played by Sandy Baron who's a scam artist that loves to drink. Every time I see him on-screen getting drunk, scamming people (Including the Leprechaun), and yucking up his eccentric street-smart personality, I always find myself being enjoyably entertained by his on-screen presence. He just steals every frame of the movie just as much as Warwick Davis does as the Leprechaun where he doesn't once strike me as annoying. As for Cody, while he is a pretty bland and uninteresting character, his character and performance aren’t bland enough to the point where he becomes boring, nor does he become as over the top annoying and idiotic as the characters in the first film, which in my opinion makes the character and performance exceptionally serviceable if nothing special. While the rest of the new characters suck, Cody and his Uncle Morty are definitely improvements over the cast of characters that we had in the first movie, especially Morty.

 

Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun, while still being far from scary, he's still incredibly fun to watch from beginning to end. Since he's not being restrained from being fun and over the top as he was in the first movie since the first film tried to make him out to be scary but miserably failed at doing so, he really goes full out comical in this film as he chews-up every single scene that he's in with his presence, dialogue, scenes of him getting drunk, violently stealing any piece of gold he sees (Which I like the new addition of him having a pot filled with gold that he's stolen, instead of him having a bag that's limited to 100 gold coins), and committing many cartoony murders. The murders that he commits in the movie are funnier and more creative than they were in the first movie. Scenes like a guy getting his face sliced-off by a pair of spinning blades as the Leprechaun uses his magic to make the blades look like Bridget's boobs; and the Leprechaun filling up a guys stomach with his gold, are so silly and yet so inventive that they definitely top all the murders that the Leprechaun committed in the first film, where the only real memorable and silly death that the first film had to offer was the Leprechaun killing a guy by hopping on top of him with a Pogo Stick. Much like the first film, the film also does have a nice look to it with its sets, colorful lighting, and nice Special effects, and surprisingly the film even tops the look that the first film had, by having it take place during St.Paddy's Day as we see people throughout the film celebrate the holiday; and witness the Leprechaun chase the characters around in his underground maze like lair that contains a few surprises (That are more laughable than they are scary). All the first film just had is an old farm house and a small ordinary town for the Leprechaun to search around for his gold.

Just like the first film, it's goofy, it's stupid, the logic makes even less sense than the first film's logic, the majority of characters are dull and annoying, its miles away from ever being scary, but the visuals look nice and Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun is enjoyably entertaining. However, while having the same amount of good and bad that the first film had, the film does surprisingly have a few things that in my opinion make the film slightly better than the first film by giving us two characters who are fairly decent; having some creative ideas and visuals that are more appealing than what the first film had to offer, even if the result is still silly; and its concept of setting the film during St.Paddy's Day to give it a bit of a holiday feel. I'm not going to say that the improvements make this film good because it doesn't. The film is still by definition a bad movie that's incredibly stupid with no actual scares whatsoever. But just like the first film, it’s still an entertaining guilty pleasure with Warwick Davis giving one hell of a fun performance in a sequel that surpasses the original.

RATING 2/5

26TH FAVORITE DISNEY VILLAIN

SYKES



FROM "OLIVER AND COMPANY"

WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!

While "Oliver And Company" is certainly not one of Disney's best, it's definitely not their worst either. It’s a pretty mediocre Disney film that's entertaining with a few nice things to offer, and one of those pros from the film that I still find myself liking about it is the villain. Not a lot of people seem to put him on their lists or seem to even remember him, and in many respects I can understand why. He's not the type of villain who carries magical powers, or has an over the top villainous personality like many of the other Disney villains that people know and love; he's pretty much just your typical average gangster with almost nothing fun or humorous about him. And the truth is that's why I enjoy this villain so much.



Unlike most animated Disney villains that have no powers where their played for both comedy and intimidation, Sykes is just a plain dead intimidating villain with a no nonsense attitude. They'll be times where he'll smile, chuckle, and even taunt his victims on a few occasions, but they're never played out in a comical way to make kids feel less intimidated by him, they still stay true to the dark and serious nature that this villain carries, which actually makes him seem pretty realistic. Alright yes, half of the things he does aren't very realistic such having incredible physical strength; loaning money to a bum who has no job or income (And I highly doubt that Fagin has a street rep for stealing); and having two guard dogs that act as his pair of henchmen. But for the most part in terms of personality and motivation, he is one of the very few realistic animated Disney villains’ that I've ever seen.




His business is Loan Sharking where he operates at a Loading Dock Warehouse, and how he intimidates the bum Fagin for money is very cold and threatening as he grabs him by the collar, and strangles him with his car window by pushing it up as he puffs Cigar smoke in his face telling him the consequences if he doesn’t pay him. There is some dark comedy in the scene, but that all comes from Fagin's reactions to what Sykes does to him, which still feels pretty intense. Like most gangsters, Sykes doesn't have a problem with killing people. When his dogs attack Fagin as he tries to tell Sykes his payment plan, Sykes just simply ignores Fagin’s pleas and just concentrates on building a model (That is until Fagin proves to him that he can pay him). In fact, if you listen to his phone conversation when Fagin enters his office, you can hear him happily and causally talking to (I'm guessing) one of his off-screen henchmen about torturing a guy, and drowning him in the ocean by cementing his feet. However, what makes him so ruthless and dark is he's not just threatening some poor adult for money, but he's also putting an innocent child in danger by kidnapping her for ransom with the intention to kill her by having his vicious dogs tear her apart with just a snap of his fingers if her parents don't cooperate, or if her butler can't get a hold of them. DAMN THAT'S COLD! By the way, how many Disney villains do you know that carry a modern day handgun; it's very rare. It's a pity that we never see him use it though. It's also interesting to note that every scene we meet this villain, he's always kept in the shadows in a very dark low life setting where the only source of light is an old hang lamp, or his lit Cigar. If I had to pick a moment where I find him intimidating to the point where I find him pretty frightening, it for me personally has to be the last image of him after he talks to Fagin a second time where he reminds him that this is his last chance of paying him back. Yes it's only a few seconds long, but that evil smile and cold stare that he gives while sitting in a dark room full of his Cigar smoke where the sound of him suddenly closing the lid to his Cigar Lighter echoes as the music becomes eerie which brings a very uncomfortable feel along with his presence, just creeps me out every time I watch this moment. Even how the scene fades out is pretty unsettling, considering that we still find ourselves staring into his lifeless eyes before we cut to the next scene.

 

However, while being a ruthless killer, the character does have a small side of mercy which does add to the level of realism surrounding this villain. Even though he could easily kill Fagin right on the spot when he discovers that Fagin doesn't have his money for him, he still gives Fagin a little more time after hearing his pleas. By the way, remember how Ursula in "The Little Mermaid" gives Ariel three days for her to have Eric kiss her "before the sun sets on the third day"? Well read this quote from Sykes and tell me that Disney didn't take a few parts from this quote to use it for Ursula in the animated film that followed after this movie; "Three Sunrises. Three Sunsets. Three days Fagin". There are also a few moments where he does act polite to his victims before losing his temper and taking things into a violent matter, like how Sykes politely asks Jenny to open a locked door, or when he greets Fagin a second time only with a more friendly approach for example. In fact, later on in the scene when Fagin tells him his plan of ransom as Sykes recognizes the street address on the cat's golden collar that reflect on his glasses, he proudly congratulates him for his brilliant idea to pay him back as he strokes the cat Oliver like a classy Bond villain, and gives him 12 hours to get the money through the ransom. Still while he can be at times be polite and show a small side of mercy, his tough and intimidating presence never seizes.



To really emphasize on the level of darkness and intimidation that this villain brings is the voice acting from Robert Loggia who we sadly lost on December 4th of last year. Originally they were going to get Marlon Brando to voice the villain, but he unfortunately turned it down fearing that the film will bomb, which is a bit of a shame considering that he's played tough guys and Mafia roles before, especially "The Godfather". With that said, the choice of casting Loggia as the villain is just as fitting and great of a choice as the idea of casting Brando, since he's also known for playing tough guy and Mafia roles as well, such as previously playing Tony Montana's former boss Frank Lopez in "Scarface", and will later on in his career be voicing the dirty tough cop Ray Machowski in the famous video game "Grand Theft Auto 3". And right around the same time that he and Tom Hanks played on the giant foot Piano in "FAO Schwartz" together in the film "Big", he was voicing a Cigar smoking badass who kidnaps children, and threatens to murder people for money. The performance that Loggia gives to this character is not only perfect, but the hoarse voice that he has, sounds very cold and dark which sends shivers down my spine for how ruthless but at the same time cool it sounds, which is very fitting since the character loves to smoke as much as Cruella Deville does, except that Sykes sounds like he is a die-hard smoker while Cruella doesn't (Though can you imagine Cruella's voice sounding just as sore as Sykes' voice).



Now as I mentioned earlier, Sykes isn't all that realistic of a villain since the only pair of henchmen that we see him have on his side are his two pet guard dogs Roscoe and Desoto. It is hinted that he has other people working for him, and the idea of him having two guard dogs as his henchmen do work in the context of the film since the guy that Sykes is enforcing money from has dogs of his own, where Sykes’ dogs play out as a pair of villains to Fagins' dogs, as he is to Fagin. But with that said, I still find it pretty strange that Sykes doesn't at least have some kind of gangster to back him up just incase. He doesn't even have any guards patrolling his warehouse either. It’s just his guard dogs, and a security system that he has to constantly keep an eye on, which in all honesty does fit the film's climax fine, but it's still pretty odd that he would heavily rely on his dogs to guard the place, and not even so much as hire a security guard to watch the monitors. Hell, he seems to love and rely on his dogs so much that the hood ornament for his Cadillac is designed to look like his two pet dogs...that’s pretty weird for a tough gangster if you ask me. However, as strange and bizarre as it all sounds, Roscoe and Desoto are just as vicious and intimidating as their master. The leader of the duo is Roscoe (The one wearing the red collar) who maybe tough and cruel, but he has a really laid back and cocky personality with a voice that's just as cool as Loggia's that emphasizes on his chill and nasty approach. The highlight for this character has to be when he's on Fagin's boat flirting with the gangs only female dog Rita, as he bullies all the others, and breaks their TV for his amusement; he just owns that scene for how cool, mean, and slick he acts when he interacts with Fagin's dogs! As cocky as Roscoe can be though, he still acts like a cool Professional, while his partner in crime Desoto doesn't who makes himself out to be a blood hungry psychopath with a great sense of smell to track down his prey, and is willing to disobey his master's commands just so he can have some cat chow. His overall presence is actually more vicious and ruthless than his partner and master. He even puts up more of a fight against the heroes in the climax than his partner does thanks to his crazy and psychotic nature before he too gets electrocuted on the subway track, which I have to admit is a pretty harsh death for these characters, especially when we see Roscoe get brutally, and quickly electrocuted as we hear him cry like a cute little puppy. But wait a second, how come the dog Tito gets to survive all the multiple times he's been electrocuted, as these two big and tough dogs don't stand a chance? It's pretty asinine if you ask me.



What I found really cool about the character Sykes is much like Captain Hook, despite his big but old appearance with an old voice that sounds like its slowly going from all the Cigars' that he's smoked, he's a very cunning and quick villain who’s strong enough to not only grab you and break your fingers, but has the strength to break down a door and punch through his car window without feeling any pain! On top of it, he also goes to the insane extremes of trying to kidnap Jenny by driving recklessly in his cool CGI Cadillac, not caring who or what he hits, or thinking about the possible dangers that await him as he drives through the Subway tunnels at full speed by pulling his gear stick hard enough to the point where he breaks it off and steps on the gas pedal so hard that his tires are destroyed to the point where his car can only run on the tracks like a speeding train. This guy seems like he went to the same school for reckless driving as Cruella did! The chase itself is pretty intense, and the determination that Sykes’ has to get Jenny back is completely mad and insane (I guess Fagin really did owe him a lot of money). But the part of the climax that everybody remembers is his death where collides into a fast on-coming train. The timing and pacing for the scene as the villain reacts to the on-coming train that his out of control car is speeding right into which causes an explosion is one of the harshest and yet coolest deaths that I've ever seen in a Disney movie. I mean his death is predictable, but the execution and how it all suddenly happens are still very surprising and shocking!

I know that Sykes is not a popular Disney villain who isn't as colorful or memorable as many of the other Disney villains that we still keep talking about, but his complete dark and serious approach is what makes him so cool and realistic. Yeah, Disney doesn't take the villain to a highly extreme realistic approach, but come on, it is a Disney film involving cutesy comical talking pets where Disney has to have some kind of restraint on the villain and take a few liberties for him to fit within the film's kid friendly world, and the liberties that Disney took in my opinion work fine within the context of the film, especially when considering that he still never loses sight of his menacing personality. He's just a very cruel and sadistic Disney villain with a cool car; two faithful guard dogs that act just as cool and sadistic as he is; a realistic motivation; and Robert Loggia making this character sound like a complete intimidating badass whenever we meet him as he's kept in the shadows, which all in my opinion make him a very underrated Disney villain.

"This has all been very entertaining. But the party, is over."
-Sykes