Customer Reviews

Top Cat: The Movie [Blu-ray + Blu-ray 3D + DVD]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The results for remakes are mixed. Some work well and some are poor. Does Top Cat: The Movie work well? Having watched Top Cat, I would say it does not beat the original series of the 1960s. Top Cat holds an iconic place as one of the finest cartoons during the decade. Hanna Barbera is renowned for bringing household cartoons to our screen. I am glad it has remained faithful in retaining the original cartoon style of Top Cat in the 21st century, rather than switching to CGI. It is nice to see the original features included in the updated version of Top Cat. All the original characters are featured. I really love the dialogues and gags between Top Cat's adversary Officer Chief Dibble and the cats in the opening sequences. This is one of my favourite moments of the animation. Top Cat comes across as charming and mischievous. The animation is in line to modern times, as you are about to observe. Depsite a few positves, the storyline let the animation down. It is far too predictable and gets a very boring following a promising start for at least twenty minuites. I do not like the nonsense of the modern gimmicks. It really spoilt the storyline to some extent. Why not stick to the jokes and witty of the original series? To me, the modern version lacks the simplicity and grace as the original series. There is humour, but not on same level as the original series. Today generation of kids would enjoy Top Cat, as it is designed for kids. As a 34 years old brought up with the animation, I am critical about it similiar to other reviewers. There are plus points and flaws with Top Cat; The Movie. On fair reflection, I would reward three stars.

Have to say some of the reviews of this film posted here so far have been ridiculously wide of the mark - although by no means a stone cold classic this big screen updating of the superb 60's TV series is certainly nowhere as bad as some would have you believe.
In fact it's a pretty decent, if flawed, attempt to take the essence of the Hanna Barbera series and bring it up to date. Not everything works but overall it does manage to capture some of the best elements of the original show. One key area where it does succeed in, for example is with Top Cat himself, which was always going to be vital for the film to work at all. Jason Harris does a pretty decent job in conjuring up both the voice and wise guy persona of the original TC, and the same can be said for the updating of his sidekicks Choo Choo and the unforgettable Benny. To those who have slated the new voices in this film, I'd suggest you check out the original series and you'll find they're a lot closer than you think.
What lets the film down though is the animation, which seems to have fallen between two stools - you can clearly see the filmmakers have tried hard to stay faithful to the two dimensional look of the original series but this approach just ends up jarring with the more modern CGI effects that are thrown in (the opening helicopter sequence demonstrates this clearly for example).
There are some nice touches elsewhere though, such as the return of TC's old canine adversary from the TV series Griswald and the presence of a suitably slimy (and loathsome) villain in Strickland.
It's also worth mentioning that my 7 old son loved the movie when he saw it in the cinema and has since become a big fan of the original TV series - always a sign that a big screen update must have done something right.

My grandchildren soon got fed up with it as it doesn't sound the same as the original series on T.V. If you have never seen the original it's ok I suppose but I wasn't that impressed. With respect to the packing/delivery, this was spot on so could recommend supplier for this but not the movie!!!

We saw this at the cinema and my 2 year old was captivated. For me, it was a huge nostalgia trip and yes, it isn't full of explosively massive budget, amazing graphics and lifelike characters, but it retains all the charm of the series and the story was good. In that, it actually had a storyline, unlike a lot of highly reviewed films these days!
I would recommend giving it a go if you ever enjoyed the series, tinies seem to like it, I guess expectations of older children are perhaps a bit higher but I would say don't expect to be blown away.
Enjoy it for what it is! Gentle, family entertainment that is definitely worthy of four stars.

Of all the country's Top Cat was sold to it was most popular in Mexico. Now in 2012, the world sees what Mexico did with Top Cat, the result is Alberto Mar's terrible film with the majority of the voice work dubbed into English by Jason Harris. The most immediate issue is the animation style; it looks like flash web animation. To look deeper, the film has the appearance of two opposing planes of 2D, the background is one layer and the characters are another sitting on top, which when projected via 3D exacerbates just how poor this is, making the fact it got such a wide release bewildering. Next, it has the story and feel of a 10 minute episode, only this 10 minute episode is stretched to 90 minutes. Even then the plot goes in some bizarre directions, with robots taking over the city, a hyper big brother state and Top Cat himself being sent to a dog prison. Then there is Spook who was once depicted as a beatnik, now he's ostensibly a 90s surfer. Top Cat the Movie is terrible, a pointless little film, with questionable appeal to justify its release outside of Mexico. Kids don't care about Top Cat and people who watched it as a kid largely don't care enough to see it, especially when it looks as bad as this.

I have read the other reviews with interest and they make some very valid points.

It COULD and SHOULD have been so much better.

The story was very obvious though there were some nice touches, such as Dibble's mobile phone.

The animation was okay but not exceptional, although it was reasonably faithful to the original series.

The voice-overs, mainly done by one voice-actor, were in truth poor and some deviated terribly from the original series.

I can understand why many youngsters were bored watching this - there was a lot of fidgeting in the cinema and my own daughter didn't rate this highly either.

Grand children loved it well worth buying . 3d film quality was really good defiantly recommend buying this DVD happy children

we enjoyed this film it was good quality and having both Blu-ray and 3d it was worth its cost enjoyed

The Kids loved the cartoon film, and although it states that it is in 3D the effects appear to be none existent??

Really fun movie for all ages, particularly those who watched TC in the 70's. 3D effect is pretty good, but 2D version is adequate.