Rating: 
Summary: Orwell As Kitty Litter Advert
Review: Cheesy, unnecessary and far, far too proper. One or two nice visual flourishes--like a propaganda film starring Napoleon briefly toward the end--do not, in the end, save this rather rambling and forgettable--and oh so earnest--revisionist version of ANIMAL FARM. Yes, they can make animals look like they're talking. But a brief comparison with the far superior, and darker, cartoon version from 1952 shows that it's probably not so good of an idea. The original worked because its motif--very expressive and yet a little Disneyesque, just enough to draw you in) was exaggerated already, before you even had to see them talk. In a cartoon we simply accept animals, and anything else, can talk. (and after all the story is expressive allegory anyway) Here it all looks like BABE, all hyperreal if anything. Here when we see them talk, we simply think, "Oh what good special effects." It looks bland and dumb, frankly. Orwell reduced to the visual virtuosity of a kitty litter ad. And though both versions altered the ending from the book, the original seemed far less tacked-on and, well, like propaganda than this one does. In this case it merely comes off as petty gloating over the fall of the Eastern Bloc and spoils the tone. And too, the look is just too MASTERPIECE THEATRE for me. This is definitely far less threatening than the original version--even Michael Medved would most likely prescribe it as pablum for kids, so if you don't want your children to think, by all means choose this version over the other one. (also available through Amazon, coincidentally) If you want your kids to then pick up the book, get the 1952 version, an excellent film in any event. This one stinks.
Rating: 
Summary: Every pig has his day.
Review: As good as the book?---well, duh! Of course it's not as good as the book, and that was so profound of the reviewers to notice that.... Does the movie work? I thought it did. For my taste, the movie remained pretty faithful to the book, and so what if the ending was left off or changed--it's not as if a metaphysical meltdown happens. The essence of the book, the metaphor for communism's inevitable failure due to good old-fashioned human nature, was right on the money, especially with the movie's Napoleon. The pigs were downright chilling. Ian Holm and Patrick Stewart rocked as Squealer and Napoleon respectively. Kelsey Grammer was also effective as Snowball, the Trotsky pig. Yes, the movie has a female dog-narrator, and yes humans play a bigger role than in the book, but I thought that worked nicely, since the humans were supposed to be symbolic varieties of capitalism anyhow. The best part of the movie were the propaganda films crafted by the pigs to cement Napoleon's power. They have to be seen to be believed!--as does this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: DASHEIKS 2 CENTS
Review: I thought this movie was a pretty good adaptation of the book but in my opinion if a movie does not resemble the book in every frame and aspect it fails. "Animal Farm" the movie is a failure. Old major looked rediculous. He may as well had been played by Kermit the frog. And to my disapointment, the ending of the book where a card game takes place and cheating is discovered (my favorite part of the novel ) is just left out and replaced with a happy ending. DREADFUL!!! "Animal Farm" is one of my all time favorite books and I have been waiting for a movie adaptation ever since I read it in high-school. I've probably read it at least 3 times. I always said I'd prefer an animated cartoon version instead of a live action one. When I saw the "Babe" movie I became alright with the prospect of a film created with this technology. I have been betrayed and in my opinion so has George Orwell. This film is an UTTER disappointment!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This missed a lot of the stuff in the book and made it family-oriented. If you are expecting it to be like the book, expect differently. It is unlike the book and there are major changes which make it a bad adaptation.
Rating:
Summary: A Nice Production But I Prefer The Book
Review: * Having long been a big fan of George Orwell, a person with a
tremendous grasp on the art of writing, I was very interested
in finding that a live action version had been made of his
little book ANIMAL FARM, his "barnyard fable" to explain the
Russian Revolution. Although an animated movie, which I have not seen, was made some
decades past, this modern ANIMAL FARM uses animals and some convincing
muppets to portray the animal proletariat and the dictatorial pigs.
The production values are superlative, with the animal roles often
surprisingly convincing, and Patrick Stewart's voicing for the
Stalinist pig Napolean was a nice touch. However, in contrast to the book, the movie seems less effective.
ANIMAL FARM is a brief, concise, bleak, and savage novel that can best
be compared to a small tank: compact, all business, no adornment,
charmless, and hard-hitting. A clever and spiffy production seems to
distract from the intent. Another problem is that stretching a short work out to a 90-minute
movie seems to dilute it instead of enhance it; for example,
elaborations on the venality of the humans in the story tend to go on
without saying much new. Extending the story to include the fall of
the farm, echoing the collapse of Communism that occurred decades
after Orwell's death, also reduces the impact, though it admittedly
has a certain justice. Despite these difficulties, ANIMAL FARM does have its moments. My
favorites are the black and white Stalinist propaganda films put
together by the pigs. One belabors in a ghastly humorous fashion the
execution of traitorous hens who had rebelled against Napoleon.
Another features choruses of ducks and bleating sheep singing the
glories of Great Leader Napolean, who reaches to the sky with a cloven
hoof to proclaim the triumph of Animalism while vee formations of
geese sweep overhead, emphasized by the indistinct roar of what could
be engines. I have to believe that if Orwell had seen these black little parodies,
he would have strongly approved of them. It might be interesting to
see what could be made of this movie if it were edited down to an
hour.
Rating:
Summary: awful
Review: a terrible terrible, excuse for a movie animal farm stoops to levels that most movies could not even imagine. this movie is too violent for young children, too boring for older children, and seems to drag on to epic proportions. i would not reccomend this to anybody ever.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Dreadful
Review: "Animal Farm" is based on the novel by George Orwell, which tells the short story of a popular revolution gone wrong. So when I (belatedly) learned that a movie had been made of it, I could barely wait to take a look at it. "After all," I figured, "even Hollywood can't ruin Orwell's Animal Farm!" I was mistaken. The good aspects of the film can be summarized relatively quickly. Hearing Patrick Stewart yelling 'Revolution!' as a pig was curiously satisfying. As in Orwell's work, I enjoyed considering the parallels between the revolution on the farm and the Russian Revolution. And that about does it. If I'm not careful, I could rant on for a goodly time regarding what I didn't like about the film. A brief opening criticism is the way in which the story has been... popularized? dumbed down? ruined?... with long sections of junk appropriate for preschoolers. Singing ducks and pathetic 'action' sequences do nothing to advance the plot and are simply tedious by any (adult) standard. For some reason, this film's producers apparently decided to make children their chief audience/target, even though the themes and messages of Orwell's work are in no way meant for children - even if they do involve a lot of cute animals. As a result, anybody old enough to understand "Animal Farm" will almost certainly be bored or insulted (probably both!) by this film. But the most disgusting sin of the filmmakers was the way in which they completely demolished the story's message. As a libertarian socialist, Orwell wrote "Animal Farm" to warn against popular revolutions being hijacked by their self-proclaimed leaders. The Russian Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks set themselves up as a new ruling class after destroying the old Tsarist order illustrates the phenomenon - and also serves as a blueprint for "Animal Farm" (the book). The climax of the story comes when the animals watch their 'leaders' carousing with neighboring farmers (read: oppressive tyrants) and are unable to tell them apart. This episode is included in the film, but is almost tossed off as the filmmakers rush to their happy ending in which the animals run off and hide in the woods for a few years, returning only after Napoleon's/Stalin's dictatorship has collapsed and new owners have taken possession of the farm. For some reason, this is treated as a wonderful event, even though the whole point of the Revolution was to get rid of the humans and set up an Animal Farm. The filmmakers stage a celebration when the logic of the book (and to some extent the movie up until that point) calls for a revolution! The philosophy of "Animal Farm" is transformed from libertarian socialist to bourgeois-apologist. The ultimate message is that dictatorship is great - as long as it's benevolent. I can clearly hear Orwell spinning in his grave. Read the book, but avoid this film at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: Animal Farm review
Review: Animal Farm is a film for all the family and mainly aimed at younger children. The story begins with some farm animals living in bad conditions who decide to rebel against their farmer-farmer Jones. The animals immediately destroy everything to do with humans and make seven rules to make sure that animals are different from humans. The rules begin the idea of communism which the animals called animalism. Almost straight away the rule "all animals are equal" is broken. Napoleon, one of the pigs, decides to apoint himself as the leader of the farm with the pigs as the most important members of the farm. The animals then work on plans to produce a windmill to provide electricity for the farm. Once the windmill is in it's finishing stages, farmer Jones turns up again with fellow farmers. The humans fail to take the farm back but do manage to destroy the windmill. Slowly, the pigs begin to breeak the laws one by one and the other animals of the farm begin to live in even worse conditions. In the end the pigs become the nearest possible thing to humans and the other animals rebel against them. This is actually the same thing that happened at the beginning with farmer Jones.
The story links in with The Russian Revolution. Many of the characters represent characters from the Russian Revolution, i.e. Old Major as Karl Marx, and Napoleon as Starlin. The film contains many cases of satire. A good example of this is the pigs representing communist parties which gives us the idea that they really were pigs.
The film was taken from George Orwells nove, Animal Farm. Personnally I do not think that the film was a good comparison to the novel as parts are missing, parts have been put in and the novel does not seem to be taken seriously. In the novel, the windmill was blown down in a storm whereas in the film there was no mention of a storm. The ending was changed so that rather than the animals accepting that the pigs were like humans, they attacked the pigs and took over the farm. Some characters from the novel were taken out such as Clover the cow. For about 15 minutes, dancing ducks seemed to take over the film. This is for the younger viewers to enjoy the film, although it was totally irrelevant to the story.
I did not the film at all as the special effects were not very good and hardly any of the animals spoke as much as in the novel, and when they did speak they made random noises that did not even sound like animals.
Rating: 
Summary: This movie was actually good!!!
Review: I usually don't like the movies that we watch at school. But Animal Farm was a pretty good movie. I watched it when I was in the 9th grade. Now I'm 17 and I still remember it. It was a cool movie. We read the book first and then we watched it. I gotta say that my teacher picked out a pretty good movie. I think this movie would be a great educationall experience for anyone who chooses to watch it. It taught me a lot about the world of animals. And it left me thinking about the world in general. Animal Farm is a movie that I will always remember. And If you choose to buy it you will remember it too.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent look at corrupt communism.
Review: I first saw this movie when it debuted on TNT and I was amazed. Animal Farm gives you a really good look at Stalinism and how it possibly came about. Through the eyes of Jesse, the farm dog, narrator of the story (and one of the refugees seen at the beginning of the movie), we take a look at the making of a utopia as told by Old Major, an aged pig that dreamed of such a way of life, and how easily this dream turns into a nightmare. There are two sides that start to form as this utopia is made, and at either said there are Napolean and Snowball. Snowball rallies the other animals to work toward Old Major's prophecy, while Napolean has his own plan. It's obvious what ensues shortly afterward, but nontheless, Animal Farm is a great film explaining how any government can turn into a corrupt business without anyone ever catching on.
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