Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds

source: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds

source: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds

I loved the book and the original animated series. This movie manages to stay as faithful to the book as possible, and to the series as well. To do this, it had to cut many of the side-stories from the series, but that's to be expected. I had one or two niggles with some elements of the story, but that doesn't matter, the rest of the movie made up for that.

I really enjoyed that they kept the main storyline and premise, yet reinvigorated the characters (especially the portrayal of Juliette). I expected to be somewhat bored because I knew the series of by heart as a child. However, through some clever twists and turns, I was pleasantly surprised.

TBH, when I saw the test footage of this film, I thought this was cancelled. However, it was done and released only in Spain and the United Kingdom. Dogtanian And The Three Muskehounds is a remake of the classic 1980's Spanish-Japanese cartoon that is based on the 1844 classic tale, The Three Musketeers, the movie is basically a retelling of the series, starting with Dogtanian and his father's duel. After defeating his father, he earns the family heirloom, the Omega Sword, and is sent to Paris to become a Muskehound, only to team up with three of them, Anthos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as Juliette, a lady in waiting Dogtanian falls in love with, and Pip, a mouse thief who becomes his squire, to save France from an evil plot from Cardinal Richelieu, who aims to sieze the throne by starting war between France and England. Now, this may not be a film for everyone who grew up with the original cartoon. There are new voice actors (and whoevers voices Dogtanian is good, but not as good as the legendary Cam Clarke, the original English voice of the hero), and it does add characters not seen in the original (like Pip, who can be found as annoying), but it does a good job with the story (adding in more details and even some 2D scenes that look like the original series updated). I recommend watching this and coming to your own conclusion, but I see it as a good film in my book.

I remember watching "Dogtanian" on the TV when I was about 7 or 8 years old, every Saturday and Sunday morning. But I must admit that I didn't know what there was a 2021 CGI animated movie in the works. I stumbled upon this 2021 animated movie by random chance, and opted to sit down and watch it with my son, and let he see something that I watched when I was buy a boy. It should be said that the 2021 CGI animated movie "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds" definitely was in the spirit of the 1981 animated cartoon, so it was somewhat of a trip down memory lane for me. And the storyline told in "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds" was enjoyable for both my son and I, so that was something great from writer Doug Langdale. The voice acting in "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds" was good, which is something of importance when you're watching an animated movie. I weren't familiar with anyone on the cast list, for better or worse. But I will say that the voice acting was suitable for the movie. The CGI art style was also nice. They managed to keep the style of the 80s animated cartoon, while adding an updated touch to it at the same time. "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds" is enjoyable for old fans of the 1980s cartoon, just as it is enjoyable for newcomers unfamiliar with the characters and storyline. I am rating "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds" a six out of ten stars.

Ignore the obvious fake reviews from shills, the crude animation would have looked bad 20 years ago and the charmless 3d renditions of the characters have none of the personality or details of the 80s cartoon. Even the crappy clipart 2d animation flashback scenes are infinitely better than the awful, barely animated CG that looks like a student project As an 80s kid who loved the original I was nostalgia baited into watching this disaster and regret every minute. Absolutely unnecessary and a totally pointless remake that misses the mark in every way.

As a watcher of the TV series, I watched this with interest to see what was better/worse than it. First of all, the new CGI animation was good. Not exactly Disney quality, but when you can count the amount of wrinkles on the end of a dog's nose, I'm officially impressed. I was also pleased with the way the characters were portrayed. Not just Dogtanian and the musketeers, but other underwritten characters from the show like Milady and Juliet get more to do here and have noticeably stronger personalities. Even Pip, who annoyed me immensely in the original because he always seemed so out of place, actually has a place and a reason for existing. And when the film actually got me to LIKE him, you know it's doing something right. On the downside, there is a pretty awful love song here which fortunately isn't on for very long (unless you want to torture yourself by staying through the credits). And the plot structure is very predictable, especially if you've already sat through other iterations of this oft-told tale before. Still, those are minor quibbles in the great scheme of things. This film surpassed all my expectations, and I recommend it mostly for fans of the old show (you may even spot a few tributes to it, if you keep your eyes peeled). Who knows, maybe even your kids will like it too... ;) 6/10.

First off I've no idea who is giving this film high scores but their reviews seem to indicate they've not actually seen the film. We have regular 'cinema nights' with the kids (6 and 10) and when Dogtanian came up on Sky Cinema I thought it would be right down our street as I loved the animation as a child. First off, this film is 1hr45 long, longer than Frozen yet or needed a good 45-50 mins shaved off as it has so many pointless bits which don't add anything other than boring bulk. The voice acting is awful, you can literally feel the actors struggling to read the script, adding pauses in strange places and mispronouncing words. The story is over complicated for children, quite boring and dull. There's a fart joke 5 minutes in and I'd argue that it was the peak of the film. The animation is awful, so low budget, it's clear they spent all the money on the rights to a beloved cartoon and had little left. It looks like it was made on an old movie maker package on a 20 year old PC. There are two camera angles and that's your lot. It looks horrible (though the line art 'flashback' was nice and served only to show how rubbish the rest of the film was). It was so poor it distracted from what plot there was. We turned the film off before the end, I have to admit it. I'm SO disappointed my favourite cartoon as a child has become this. The kids were FINE with us turning it off which I think says it all. Save your time and watch the old cartoons on YouTube or just watch a different film altogether.

The voice acting and dialogue are clumsy, the animation is cheap, and the overall production is cheap. Any other version of this story would be better.