Rating: 
Summary: "O.K., 'Babe', time to make you ham again!"
Review: Orwell's bleak fable about revolution betrayed gets the full sunny "family-entertainment" Hallmark treatment and the result, as you can imagine, is abominable! Pity, for it has a great cast and several scenes worth looking at, but, as a whole, this movie -as all TNT "adaptations"- is completely off the mark! 'Animal Farm' ...for kiddies? With a happy ending? So the entire family can "squeal with delight"? Just who the hell thought that out?! No one, it seems, and it shows. The film is too tame for adult viewers who'd like to see the grim little novel on screen, and too violent for children who certainly won't expect to witness a cutesy Babe-like talking piggie executing his brothers-in-arms <I mean> legs. My guess is they'll both be horrified at the end, its patched-up "happy" conclusion notwithstanding: Kids, because they're not stupid and sure realize it's back to the chopping block for their furry & feathered friends the moment the "new owners" step in, and adults, not only for the outrageous "liberties" taken from the book, but because -come to think of it- the sugarcoated finale holds a new ominous moral in itself: No, don't worry, the future won't be a Communist dictatorship after all; the future will be one big, happy, postcard-looking Americana, owned by cool Ken and Barbie, whose kinder, gentler slaughterhouse still awaits for your neck! "Hey! Whaddaya expectWe're running a FARM here!"
Rating: 
Summary: Great book and Great movie!
Review: For my english class a few years back I read the book and recently I saw the movie. For the first five minutes seeing these animal's mouths moved while they spoke perfect english seemed hard to get use to but once you get past the first 30 minutes youll be on the edge of your seat awaiting what the cruel Napolean will do next.
Rating:
Summary: the book was better...
Review: I know, that's what they always say. But _Animal Farm_ with a happy ending? That alone would be enough to turn me off, but this movie also suffers from a bit of a time dilation problem: the pigs become corrupt in about 15 seconds of screen time, rather than gradually as they do in the book. To top it off, this movie's direction is so heavy-handed it makes Orwell look like a master of subtlety.
Rating: 
Summary: Read the book instead.
Review: "Hey, Lets write another talking pig movie, kids love them talking pig movies!" A common phrase is "The book was better then the movie." Well never has the sentence been more valid. The book Animal Farm is NOT A CHILDREN STORY BOOK, it's a great piece of literature written for "thinkers" which evidently we are lacking. It is a dark nightmare that makes you feel sick when you read it because of the truth it teaches. Animal Farm (the book) is one of my favorites, so I was exited to see the movie. Now I am upset with my self for sitting through the whole thing in hopes that it would get better. "Who was this movie made for? Who did they think their target audience was? Had they never read the book?" These were the questions that went through my mind as I watched in horror. I had the feeling they wanted to cash in on the annoying talking pig movie craze by making a talking pig movie and (without even understanding what it was about) they picked Animal Farm, not for its important thought provoking message (which they lost) but for the talking Pigs! Any intelligence from the book was lost. Now kids won't like the dark story. (Even with the ridiculous happy ending that was added, when a nice farmer family moves onto the farm, any thinking person who understands the metaphor of Animal Farm will understand why another human family moving in and taking care of the animals, and making everything all better deconstructs the whole message of the book. I won't take the space to explain why, if you don't know read the book again because you missed the point of the book and George Orwell wrote it for nothing). Adults won't like it because it was sadly directed at children and any thing thought provoking has been removed. Now it is just plain, bad. My biggest fear is that teachers will buy this and show it to their students. Is it any wonder that our country is filled with illiterate goofs that hate reading?
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely great...until the ending
Review: Animal Farm and 1984...along with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World...are my favorite books. So, naturally, I was ecsatic about TNT bringing this classic to life as a movie (TNT usually does better book-to-movie adaptations than Hollywood anyways) Well, by the end of the film I had decidedly mixed emotions. As far as Orwell's story goes, the film was precise and to the number. The two warring philosophies of leadership, as embodied by pigs Napoleon and Snowball (Stalin & Trotsky) are voiced perfectly by Kelsey Grammar and Patrick Stewart. I think for megolomania, you can't do better than Stewart. Jesse, the dog, is as I always imagined, the typical Russian citizen during communism, who realizes the evil of totalitarianism, but is too afraid to go against it. And the supporting cast, like Boxer the Horse, represent the many victims of a dictatorship, whose "uselessness" as judged by the state ends in their ellimination. The makers of this movie put together a fine parallel to Orwell's novel. But the ending didn't sit right with me. Of course, certain imagery, like the rock wall collapsing, is an obvious metaphor for the Berlin Wall falling, and the end of communism. But I don't see why the filmmakers decided to tack on this happy, optimistic ending, with the "brave and free-minded" Americans coming in to take over the farm and save the animals. Why couldn't they have just left it the way Orwell left it, uncertain and hopeless? Orwell probably knew when he wrote the book that communism would fall in the future, but he left that out because I imagine it wasn't his intention to be a prophet, or a bringer of hope to the Russians. It was his intention to show the evils of totalitarianism, which this movie does well until that ending. Oh well. In the end, it still remains a very good movie, both on its own and as an adaptation. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others!"
Rating:
Summary: Parents Beware
Review: I won't pretend to be an expert on George Orwell, but I am a parent. This video is the most shocking example of misleading packaging I have ever seen. This movie is packaged with words like "a family treasure" and "your whole family will squeal with delight". Nothing could be farther from the truth. This movie is a literal adaptation of an ADULT novel, and is not appropriate for children under 12. It is dark, violent, and requires an understanding of the message that Mr. Orwell was trying to send. The quality and value of the movie can be discussed and debated, but the only thing a parent needs to know is that it is NOT a movie for children. The marketing company should be taken to task for this abuse of trust.
Rating:
Summary: American rock-n-roll: The answer to totalitarianism
Review: The ending in Animal Farm was not only a travesty to Orwell's original work, but made no logical sense. Certain animals supposedly had the sense and wherewithal to go into hiding on the farm until Napoleon's reign came crashing. Where did they hide? How did they survive? Most of all, why weren't they hunted down as traitors by Napoleon's dogs? But the real incongruity comes after Napoleon's fall. "The walls have now fallen," (a post-Reaganistic interpretation of the Berlin Wall) and now there is hope in the future. "There are new owners. We will not allow them to make the same mistakes." What new power and insights do the animals now have to prevent the same mistakes? And just who are these new owners, anyway? Why do the animals (who have proven themselves capable of running a farm, if they are not mismanaged) have to revert to human owners to be their masters again? And why are we to believe these new human owners are better than Jones or Pilkington? Is it because they look more "American," drive a sleeker, newer car, and play rock-n-roll? Orwell wrote this classic tale as an allegory of modern totalitarianism in general, and Stalinism in particular. TNT's production reeks of a post-modern, imperialistic, corporate-American view of Russia and Eastern Europe today, whose troubles would be over if they would just fully embrace their new owners, American multi-national corporations, with their hip technology and rock-n-roll culture.
Rating:
Summary: fabulous rendition of Orwell's dark image of the future
Review: I loved Orwell's "1984," but I was never a fan of "Animal Farm." It's my own quirkiness that didn't allow me to enjoy the well written book... I just couldn't stomach the evil perpetrated by these animals... being an animal lover, myself, it was very hard to imagine animals behaving in this way, even though it was clear that this political tale had no intent of replacing "Charlotte's Web." I knocked off a star for the Hollywood ending that altered the original story... but seeing the book performed by the excellent animitronics really helped me "enjoy" this story in a new light. The real shame is that this film will probably never be re-made, with the correct ending. Any film with talking animals is going to attract children, even though they are not the targeted audience. No child should see this film... it is rampant w/ violence, betrayal and evil acts perpetrated by manipulative animals against weaker farm animals... young tender-hearted kids can be easily traumatized by this film intended as an allegory of politics and bureaucracy for adults. Because of this, it would be counter-productive to re-create this film in the future to correct the changes in the original story. A literary classic is a classic for a reason. To make the ending a "feel-good" movie really cheapened the previous hours of the show. Excellent voice-overs by Patrick Stewart and others. If you have pet pigs or just can't stand animals being hurt, this is a film that probably won't settle well with you... but no real animals were harmed in the making of this film... and except for the cheesy faux ending, it is well executed.
Rating:
Summary: Orwell Must Be Rolling In His Grave
Review: The acting and animatronics in this film are executed well enough, but the sappy, feel-good ending that these naive, well-to-do Hollywood clowns have herein introduced must have had George Orwell rolling in his grave; everything ends on a nice, viewer-friendly, hunky-dory happy note in this movie--COMPLETELY opposite to Orwell's ending, and his intended meaning. The only way these script writers could have even considered such a carefree butchery of Orwell's original ending is by falling into the naive perception that Orwell was ONLY warning readers about totalitarian Russia, and not warning readers about totalitarianism anywhere and anytime into the future; sadly, these Hollywood history dunces are not the only ones who have myopically accepted this unreality: I recently bought a paperback edition of Animal Farm which features a forward written by an educated fool of a writer by the name of Russell Baker who also limits Orwell's meaning to Soviet Russia alone!--the naivete is spreading, and Orwell's intentionally dark and profound admonition is being given a shiny new whitewash by these optimistic and heedless people; it is just such blindly optimistic stupidity which allows history and holocausts to repeat and repeat and repeat every so often. This movie was enjoyable up to that butchery of a happy ending, but that ending alone is enough to repulse me from ever recommending it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie! Manditory viewing for any human age 9 to 90
Review: Teach your children well! Live is not always filled with fuzzy warm fluff balls, peaches and cream, and what glitters is not always gold. If they are old enough to be taught not to get into a stranger's automobiles because he/she is offering them candy, then they are old enough to view and understand this movie. Given the leftist political ideology of Ted Turner, I thought TNT did a wonderful job portraying Stalin's Russia. This a very entertaining film, heaven help you, because you may learn something in the process of watching it.
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