It’s not very egg-cellent
Hello, Spongey here.
We’ve reviewed quite a few forgien animated movies on here, mostly the bad ones. I feel bad for that since I know there’s plenty of great foreign animated movies that are often overlooked in favor of stuff like Fantastic 4orce.
I’m adding to that today but the thing to note is that sometimes things are lost in translation to a poor dub. It’s not always the case but sometimes it is, just look at any Weinstein dub.
Today’s case isn’t quite as extreme but it does seem that some of the more positive reviews of the original Spanish version cite the clever script as their reason for enjoying it despite a weak story.
Needless to say, the English dub isn’t very clever. This was released in U.S. theaters in a subbed version (way to fuel the Sub vs Dub debate) but eventually got an English dub sometime later.
I sadly couldn’t track down the original version but apparently that one was funnier and a tad edgier. And there’s a reason for that. See, this started life in the early 2000’s as a series of web shorts that were aimed at adults.
They got popular enough to warrant a couple of movies in the late 2000’s they never made it to the states, due to the “edgy” content. Something tells me they hadn’t seen any adult cartoon ever.
Either way, in 2015 released one in the US that that carried a PG-13 rating, at least in its Spanish form. This US Dub is clearly meant to be a bit more kid friendly, but still has some adult jokes.
But they’re the usual kind of adult jokes they’d pepper into kids movies to make it look more adult than it is. Yeah, quite a bit of history behind this ultimately crappy little movie.
I watched it for my post on the animated films of 2015 and as you know, I had to much to joke about so here we are with the full review. I want to preface it with saying that I know some stuff may have been better in the Spanish one but the English version as it is was just not good to me.
I still think they could have done a better job with it but just know this is all in good fun.This
English version was directed by the person behind the Planes rip off Wings, and the English writers were also mostly on that, along with movies of that nature. Not the best sign.
With ALL that said, why doesn’t this egg adventure crack me up? Let’s see.
This, is Huevos: Little Rooster’s Egg-cellent Adventure
The movie starts with someone narrating a story about some sentient eggs that were trapped at a giant’s house, as the giant is preparing to eat them. This just plays out like a kid friendly Sausage Party to be honest.
They are saved by an egg superhero and we see this is a story being told to some egg kids.
“And I might have pooped a little”
Putting your best foot forward with the humor, I see.
“And that’s how we became The Breakfast Bunch”
So you’re a weird Breakfast Club parody no kid is gonna get?
Then we get random movie references, like the narrator getting things confused with a movie with…Egg Norton.
Yep, we’ve got puns. The real life version of this guy he’s pumping up is just his roster friend Rolo, voiced by Zachary Gordon. One thing I should mention before I forget is that the lip sync on Carnie, the guy telling the story, (voiced by Jason Mewes) is way worse than everyone elses.
The lip sync is generally fine but for some it almost never matches up, especially early on. It’s weird.
While I’m putting out odd things, I must wonder how this world of anthropomorphic eggs and roosters works. It really pushes that “Which came first question” harder, is what I’m saying.
And one of the characters is Bacon. There’s no reason he’s a bacon, and there’s barely any other living foods. We just have…a Bacon for no reason. And there are humans here, so that makes it worse.
Rolo fears he can’t live up to these stories, but it doesn’t matter because this is isn’t really relevant again. In a vague sense it is but this whole opening is technically pointless.
There’s a hen who has the hots for him, because of course we have a generic love interest. They have a chat and it’s awkward as you’d expect, and also there’s a frog there.
“Everyone’s a critic”
No comment.
We find out that Rooster boxing is a big deal, and we see one rooster losing a match, along with his farm home. I only mention this because the newspaper reporting on this has the headline “Bad Mother Clucker”.
Yeah, that’s what I was talking about in the intro. In this version the adult humor just feels weirdly out of place.
The next morning, we see that Rolo can’t crow very well. Someone in a kids-ish movie can’t do the thing his kind is known for doing? What a fresh concept! His Mom hears it as lovely at least.
After what feels like way too long of “Hurr hurr he can’t crow”, we get another cliche as the farm they live on has to be sold due to money issues. They must raise money to save the farm.
“Maybe we sells Rolo’s voice box on Eggslist?”
Sigh.
“We place a bet at the arena”
Yep, they’re going into Rooster boxing, as suggested by the rooster leader, voiced by Keith David. So they take the mailman’s motorcycle in a Gilligan cut and head into town, as Bad to the bones plays. Sure, why not.
Then we randomly cut to these two rats who have “the munchies”, so they go after the rooster’s when they see them…very slowly. We keep cutting back to this “subplot” even though it adds nothing and is never funny once.
Trust me, I’m doing you a favor by skipping them from now on. The leads arrive at some bar/club place, which has the arena under it. We get more winning humor:
“There’s some bad eggs in here”
“That was me, Taco Tuesday”
That doesn’t even make sense. In the middle of this, that hen girl tries to talk to Rolo but he’s distracted by his thoughts of being a rooster boxer. Yep, we’re throwing in that cliche while we’re at it.
They are taken in to see the …Eggfather. How much dust did you have blow off that one? By the way, Dee (the love interest girl) is Keith David’s daughter and she says her dad is a “Brave cock”.
Yes. I’m surprised it took them this long to say that for me to snicker at.
“Who are you, Chika dee?”
“Dee”
“As in Chika Dee?”
“Without the Chika”
“But you’re a chicken”
“Eggfather, the name is dee”
“No, my name is Sheldon!”
I hate all of you right now.
Eggfather wants to talk to Keith David, so the others so back into the main club as a sexy peacock is singing. This causes Rolo to do his best Tex Avery Wolf impression, while Dee is right there. It’s not funny and it’s making me like Rolo less, what a deal!
“You have nice sweet peas”
He said that on accident but it’s still some perfect family entertainment. Yeah, I’m too lazy to fully do it this time. By the way, apparently she’s voiced by Alyson Stoner which creates an…interesting image.
Of course, Sweet Pea’s boyfriend is a jerk, and also the evil boxer Rolo will have to fight against in the climax. Anyway, Keith David made his deal with Eggfather but part of it is that Rolo has to be the one to fight for his farm.
So now Rolo must train to defeat his jerk-y ememy. Yeah, our main story here is rather cliche which would fine if it was well told and the humor was good, but alas.
Keith David explains his backstory, which is shown in 2D animation. It’s not a crappy CGI movie if it doesn’t show off some 2D that just makes you wish the whole movie was like that. Seriously, the animation in this bit is really smooth and whoever did it did do a great job at least.
Keith David was this big fighter until a super fast duck defeated him. But he thought it was a strange rooster even though he is clearly a duck, but that was revealed right after anyway.
He became a laughing stock and now they’re looking for the duck to get some special training. An okay backstory, not much to comment on. They go to the forrest and find this big gather of ducks.
They’re currently watching….a rap battle between Soup Duck and LLQuack J. I want to die. Rolo is forced to go up there to make me want to die harder.
“Everyone knows only ducks can rap!”
Ah yes, a common stereotype. This scene adds a lot to the plot, as you can tell. Also, someone says something I can’t fully make out by part of it is “Jay and Silent Bacon”
Get it?!
The rap battle switches to a normal battle as he gets his ass beat. While they heal up, they bump into a crazy egg name I’m too lazy to type out. They ask him to help them find a certain duck and he goes on a tagent.
“We got ducks with green feathers, blue black orange, glow in the dark, tootie frootie, we got kind sized, queen sized, double twin inflatable and many more!”
He’s extremely unfunny, as you can tell.
“Aflack, Daffy, and Darkwing!”
And he brings out the obligatory pop culture references, joy. He reveals that his dad was the duck that beat Keith David and he went missing some time ago. Instead of trying to find him to see if he’s dead or something, Crazy Duck agrees to train Rolo.
“Season 3 of DuckTales on DVD, woo hoo”
Please stop.
The next morning, we of course get a training montage, set to the Rocky music because originality is for suckers. At least we finally got to him training…a mere 50 minutes in.
After a quick break, there’s a 2nd montage of him trying to fly which goes nowhere as he goes back to training his fighting skills. The movie basically makes up for lost time by putting all the training in this one long section.
Eventually, Rolo figures that he should harness the powers of ducking to go by and this is witnessed by a vulture who goes back to Sweet Pea, as we find out she’s a villain.
Okay, I didn’t see that coming but it also comes out of nowhere and doesn’t exactly add a lot given we already have enough conflict with the fight. Back to Rolo, Crazy Egg tells him he has to crow, so they’re boned.
“You’re way worse than Happy Feet!”
They call it a night, and the next morning vultures attack the farm. Rolo randomly ends up learning to fly here because we gotta resolve that conflict before resolving the actual conflict.
Also, in the middle of this chase scene, Carnie shits himself. Lovely.
They escape the vultures so now it’s on to the big fight. After a rough start, Rolo starts doing pretty well. The fight’s not too bad and it doesn’t give me too much to talk about since nothing that stupid happens and him winning just sort of happens because he belives in himself, and yada yada.
So he wins and gets with Dee, cuz he just randomly got over being into that one girl in that one scene, whatever. On top of that, the human who owns the arena is arrested.
“You’re racist! I’m a victim”
….I don’t even know how to respond to that. This guy is white, by the way. Side note, we find out the humans can’t understand the animals but they still do all this stuff and clearly know they have smarter thoughts and all that.
Our heroes got the farm back, and Eggfather is col with all this. But we have other pointless plot lines to wrap up, as Sweat Pea is brought in as they find out she was behind the vultures. She doesn’t even get a real climax, she is just brought in having randomly been found.
With that hasilty wrapped up, we get our dance party ending to show out of touch they are. Then with that super rushed ending, the credits roll but they want to hold us hostage so we get a mid credits scene wrapping up that stupid subplot with the rats.
But then we have a POST credits scene where Crazy Duck’s Dad randomly shows up and reunites with him. He was eaan by an alligator and went out…the back.
We’re done here.
Final Thoughts:
Well, that was something.
I’ll start by saying the animation is decent. It’s nothing great but the rendering is solid and the movements are solid enough. The human designs are off but they aren’t in that much so I don’t mind it too much. Not exactly amazing animation, but it’s well done.
Some of the voice acting is also good. The rest is pretty poor, Some of this can be blamed on the dub as a lot of the jokes are really bad, with lame pop culture references and some characters like Crazy Duck being annoying.
But that rat subplot was in the visuals so I can’t blame the dub for everything. Either way, the story is super weak. I can live with it being cliche but the don’t do much with it and they pad it out with pointless subplots that go nowhere and don’t gel with the main story.
The characters are interesting and carry the story that well, so I can’t exactly get invested in what is doing. It’s one of those movies that is boring and quite off the wall, but not in the good way that can be weirdly enjoyable.
Maybe the original script was stronger but the English one is a mess, along with the lip syncing but more often than not doesn’t match what they’re saying.
This isn’t one of the worst animated movies ever or anything, but it’s such a mess with a weak story and lame jokes. I stand by having it as the weakest animated movie of 2015, was at least Strange Magic was ambitious.
As I said, maybe something was lost in translation but either way they didn’t do a good job of translating and the result is a pretty mess and weak movie. Far from the worst I’ve seen but still not very good.
If you can track the original version down, just watch that instead. I imagine it’s at least a little better.
Rating: Meh
Did I need to do a full review of this one? Not really but it was still fun.
As for next time, I think there’s movie from 2018 I need to finally get out of the way.
See ya.