291. Dogtanian & The Three Muskehounds; movie review

 

DOGTANIAN AND THE THREE MUSKEHOUNDS

Cert U

81 mins

BBFC advice: Contains very mild violence, threat, rude humour

I was brought up on Gene Kelly's Musketeer, D'Artagnan, so I was happy to be reminded of him, albeit by a computerised dog.

The narrative of Dogtanian And The Three Muskehounds is surprisingly close to the swashbuckling 1948 film - except animated canines and felines have taken the roles of Kelly and his fellow humans.

Apparently, Dogtanian was a children's TV series which was first broadcast in Japan in the early 1980s.

Spin on 40 years and the baton has been picked up by Spanish company BRB Internacional  and taken on by director Toni Garcia.

His Dogtanian is the son of a former Muskehound who lost his privileged position at court after falling into disgrace.

The young pup sets off for Paris to follow in his dad's pawsteps and  clear his name.

Of course, the usual route to his ambition is ten years of training but let's not allow that to get in the way of a good story.

Here, there is romance, pantomime-style villainy and Dogtanian's new friends, Porthos, Athos and Aramis, are "all for one and one for all."

Anyone who knows Alexandre Dumas's story of intrigue at the French court will be aware of the grab for power of cardinal Richelieu via his agents Count Rochefort and Milady de Winter.

They play key parts here too as Dogtanian sticks too much of the beloved script.

For adults, this will bring welcome familiarity in a very unfamiliar setting. For the young, it will be the first telling of a rollocking good story.

I am not a fan of the currently favoured style of animation - it seems clunky to me - but it wasn't too off-putting here and I recognise that the target audience will not care a jot.

Reasons to watch: Fun family film

Reasons to avoid: Clunky animation

Laughs: Two

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 6.5/10

Did you know? There were two original 1980s Dogtanian TV series of 26 episodes each.

The final word. Toni Garcia: "We wanted to be consistent with the original, we wanted to respect as much as possible the legacy of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. So, the movie starts with a narrative style very consistent with the original show then when the movie turns and the plot twists and starts making more rhythm and then suddenly the narrative style becomes more and more complex, the illumination everything." Premiere Scene

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