Animal Farm

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Counterpoint to Babe
Review: Well, if you swore off the bacon after seeing Babe, watching this ... will put you right back on it again. This is a stylishy nasty rendition or Orwell's classic novella.

Very interesting, the lengths to which the actors in that surprise family hit went to avoid typecasting: James Cromwell, mild mannered, communing-with-nature, hullo trees hullo sky etc farmer appeared in quick succession as unscrupulous press baron William Randolph Hearst and dastardly Police chief Dudley Smith, and one happy little piglet shows up as a bunch of porcine crypto-fascists here.

Now, where's that bacon sandwich...

Rating:
Summary: Animal Farm (1999)
Review: Even though there were several pretty horses I did not like this at all. The leader of the farm, a pig, gets killed and this skull is placed on a stick (flies also) by the other ;animals. Animals are slaughtered and it shows the shadow of some people getting 'jiggy', plus the head board hitting the wall. I turned it off. My parents were shocked since it is rated "G"...but this could scare little kids and is not a "G" movie. I got it becasue I hoped it would be like the movie "Babe". It was not.

Rating:
Summary: My Two Cents
Review: This movie scared the hell out of me! I had always heard that pigs were purported to be rather intelligent. But duplicitous? Machiavellian? Pitiless? What cruel fate awaits us at their greedy hands or feet or whatever? All I can say is that the very moment I was informed of the premise of this movie I ran right out of the house and downed a fistful of bacon. After all, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.

Rating:
Summary: excellent, but make no mistake -- not for kids!
Review: This is like "Babe" with overt evil and graphic violence. George Orwell's "Animal Farm" is brought to life effectively with a host of celebrity voices (though Kelsey Grammer's 'Snowball' is essentially his "Sideshow Bob" persona.)

Animalism is a thinly-veiled version of Communism and its rise and fall in Russia, which is depicted here as Manor Farm, the farm where the animals drive away Farmer Jones and rename as Animal Farm. All animals are equal here, and the fruits of their labors are theirs alone.

However, this utopia quickly unravels, and Jessie the dog (Julia Ormond) narrates as she and her friends experience the terror and oppression of the pigs, who appoint themselves the leaders of Animal Farm.

Rating:
Summary: Russian Revolution
Review: There are many similarities between Animal Farm written by George Orwell and the Russian Revolution that took place in Saint Petersburg in 1917. There is also a certain connection with Napoleon Bonaparte. The transformation from a patriot into a corrupt politician needs power, money and illiterate citizens. Animal Farm has all of these and many other really good examples of allusions, the Soviet Union (Russia) and the Napoleon power. The author, George Owell was terribly impressed by how the Soviet Union was governing their country and how they despised their civilians, who were starving to death like the animals in the story. George Orwell used to say that his book Animal Farm was a 'Fairy Story'. In fact, it is an acute criticism to the totalitarian regime like the Soviet Union in that period. Orwell was fond of the socialist ideas, but after the Spanish War, when he found out how Stalin treated his faithful followers, and how people lost their lives for an ideal that didnÂ't exist , he became a strong critique of the Soviet Revolution .

The best way used by a writer is the irony and the fairy tale style. It has a big impact on the readerÂ's mind. Another example in the readerÂ's mind is the oppression of the innocents who work hard to support the lying politicianÂ's power. One of the comparisons between the Soviet Union and Animal Farm is the atrocity of this faithful and hard working horse called Boxer that is sent to the slaughter house just because he is sick, we feel disgusted and shocked. He represents in the Soviet Union the Proletariat, hard working people who always think that the politicians are right and that we need to follow their instrunctions all the time. The rulers of the farm were pigs (which in real life are very dirty), which were the most intelligent animals and are compared to our corrupt politicians from years ago like Stalin, Napoleon, and Trotsky. The pigs know how to read and take decisions, while the other animals were treated as inferior. Napoleon represents Stalin, Snowball is Trotsky, Mr Jones was the owner of the farm. He was a drunkard, lazy and cruel to the animals, he represents Czar Nicholas II. Molly represents the Bourgeosie, who was always paying too much attention to her appearance and doesnÂ't notice what is happening around. Squealer is another pig and he represents the propaganda of the communism party. Clover, another horse in the novel, represents the peasantry class.

George Orwell wrote a novel using many allusions which may be compared to several members of the communist party. Using a lot of creativity he developed and represented each animal with different non-fiction rulers.

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Marco Aslan

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Rating:
Summary: A very good adaptation of the classic
Review: I was hoping for an Animal Farm that followed Orwell's book as closely as possible. I found it with TNT's version. This is a wonderful adaptation and I would recommend it especially to those who want to put "faces" to the characters of the story.

Rating:
Summary: Happy ending for Animal Farm? Orwell would hate it
Review: TNT wasted the emormous talent of its team and guests to produce the happy ending that Orwell would both hate and understand. Combining this with the happy ending to th eproducers on broadway leads me to the next "happy colorization" of historically sginificant dark stories --------------- Life after death of a salesman (Arthur Miller) Willie Loman will buy, then short Amazon, and live happily ever after.

Rating:
Summary: They have ruined the ending!!
Review: This movie follows the book pretty well accept for the ending. They gave it a happy ending when there should be a sad ending. Oh well, I guess they were trying to make it more family oriented.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant adaptation of "Animal Farm" plus historical ending
Review: This movie, which puts George Orwell's brilliant book "Animal Farm" in action using real life actors and puppets, is true to the book's message and the actual history of the movie. First of all, let me say that I loved the book. It is a horrifying and thought-provoking tale of what happens when power corrupts and a utopia becomes hell. This movie does so much for Orwell's message: the visualization of the animal takeover and eventual decline into totalitarianism is fleshed out in horrific imagery on pitch with Orwell's fairy tale. While some reviewers have complained about the seeming "happy ending" of the story, I enjoyed how the filmmakers took a look at the fall of the pig rule: just as the USSR fell when the foundations broke down and the walls crumbled, so does Manor Farm, or the Animal Farm, that the animals worked so hard for. It's not a happy ending aimed to manipulate the audience's outlook after the movie: it's the real life ending that Orwell never got to see. This movie does the book justice not only by visually recreating the world of Animal Farm, but also by re-enforcing the horror in all of us of what "could" happen and what power does. My only qualm about this movie (and it must not be very big because I still gave it 5 stars) was that Old Major's puppet was too hideous and overdone to make the audience really take him seriously. Read the book and, if you loved it, watch this wonderful adaptation of the story that we all need to learn from.

Rating:
Summary: do yourself a favor and read the book!
Review: If you need to see a visual, then watch the cartoon version from the 50's. Granted, the endings are different in both movie versions i.e., the animals bringing Napoleon to justice in the cartoon and the sappy, [bad] ending to the 1999 film. The film had great potential, but moviegoers want to see a happy ending and that's what the 1999 film delivers. The cartoon is much darker and Napoleon actually looks evil. Plus there is too much focus on the humans in this move, which are hardly even mentioned in the book. Also, this movie totally missed the point of Animal Farm's underlying theme of the fall of communism. Well, I've yapped enough..just read the book or, if you must, see the cartoon. Avoid this movie.