Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Tymon Sutton
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
andyjohnson25
there have been a few bad comments on this movie so far so here is something different, i enjoy the animated films and have been let down by some of the new ones as i think they are losing the plot and kids don't get them (everybody knows that more animated films are directed more to the adults and seems like they are forgetting the kids) This movie to me brings brings back the best a movie that both kids and adults will enjoy, it is funny from start to finish with jokes that kids will understand but adults can laugh at with a story line that will keep you entertained from the first scene to the last , i was not expecting much from this title but i got bored so i watched it and i am so glad i did its a keeper, im not going into detail as i will give story away but my advice is watch this or let the kids watch it either way you will be pleased.
Robert Armstrong
Not really a bad film: children will appreciate some overarching lessons about human relationships if they're not too confused by the conflicting details.Irony is that what's perhaps most dissatisfying about this film is where it __does__ resemble HC Andersen's original fairy tale; the meandering from one apparently unrelated scene to the next in order to fill out the prerequisite playing time of a feature-length story.(Mild spoilers from here on, but I'm trying not to reveal much. Film is grudgingly recommended for children, but adults should be aware of content, and prepared to discuss with children anything that disturbs them morally or physically.) Main character Ratso appears to be buddies with a worm character, who then turns out not to have all that much to do with rest of story. Backstory of worm and rat is as developed as present tale of rat with baby "duckling" who assumes Ratso is his parent, yet the worm is unworthy of being recognized as extended family member, presumably because he is a worm. Rat's exploitive, selfish personality is allegedly redeemed by love, although for most of story he has shown no emotional capacity or learned skill for caring. He could have been friends with the worm, or at least in denial about needing friendship with the worm."Adult" aspects of storytelling seem to be tempered for younger audiences, resulting in implausibly denied reality: a predator is evil and deadly, then suddenly friendly. Another predator appears to have killed (a bit graphic here), and then victim turns up alive. Similarly another villain turns out not to have wanted to kill them at all.Sudden growth spurts turn the title "duckling" into different personalities overnight, again hearkening back to Andersen's original story wherein the character becomes a swan (we'll allow that spoiler, I think) whether or not preceding learning experiences have contributed to his becoming a better, or at least more attractive, person. Lesson here is for parents to identify with their own dealings with growing kids, but logistical problem of starting out with one character and then abandoning it (remember the worm?) is a jarring technical point the audience is going to resent.Plenty of inter-special relationships, including romantic/sexual affinities (burdening audience with yet another layer of suspended disbelief, a la the grasshopper-bee relationship in Fleischer brothers' Mr. Bug Goes to Town).Admittedly UD + Me is attractively filmed and animated, a plus for its acceptance by younger audiences, however intelligent these kids are. The adult swans, however, who are admired for their physical beauty, aren't all that graceful or attractive. There's an intended irony in question of whether physical beauty is enough for the "duckling" to want to become swan-identified at the end, but the superficial beauty in these distant objects of desire isn't quite there anyway. Voice actors are talented and well cast.Little tweaks in the writing of the dialog might have smoothed over inconsistencies. Shakespeare could have created satisfying plot development within this random grouping of "people" who become a family, even though they're not technically family. Perhaps the writers, including Andersen, should have studied Shakespeare.Tries to please everybody with adult-yet-not-adult content: ultimately, is this film for anybody?
alewar
After watching the trailer I thought the would be fun, it was curious though that the last function was at 16:30 hrs. To begin with the animation was nothing special, the drawings of the characters look cheap and the plot could have been written by a four-grader. It was boring and I feel cheated by the trailer (in a "happy feet" way).At least I realized that Europe can produce exactly the same kind of superfluous, empty and bad movies without Hollywood. Another disappointing film. Keep your money and don't watch this crap.
Aleks Stosich
A very heart-warming and kid-friendly film, brought up-to-date in terms of some of the plot twists and humour. When Ratso, a slick city rat, sees Ugly (yep, that's his real name), all he can imagine is dollar signs. He plans on exploiting the duckling at carnival sideshows. But, "the best-laid plans of rats and ducks" don't always work out the way we originally want them to. At the Toronto Festival, this was part of the pilot "Family First" series, an outreach of the "Sprockets" Children's Film Festival, so it was unusual but very refreshing to have so many kids in the audience. Their laughter was genuine, and the rest of us had plenty to laugh about as well (Got a teenager in your life? you'll love the scenes of Ugly's very rapid-onset 'puberty'). The animation is crisp and inviting, and the voices in the English language version were excellent.
