This is a weird one, and I think perhaps that's because it's a product of its time. In 1991 the animation revolution was well and truly underway, and it was ok for adults to like cartoons all of a sudden. But they hadn't made the break which would see the adult-only humour of shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force a decade later (and of course everyone had forgotten Ralph Bakshi's 70's adult animation. Including him.)

So you end up with a film which is neither for kids or adults in particular, and fails to achieve the melding of the two, as in say 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'. This is a significant fault.

Actually it's one of many significant faults. Considering Warner were leading the charge with 'Animaniacs' at exactly this point, they really should have done better than this. The humans are just.... ugly and wooden, and don't seem to belong to the same universe as the animals. Some of the animation (I'm thinking of a scene with a car in it) was crummy - though at other times it was fine.

Being from Tasmania I had very little idea who Rodney Dangerfield was. We'd had no exposure to him here. I knew the name, and that was about all. When the film came out on video I thought about renting it, but didn't bother. In fact the first time I saw the guy was the faux sitcom in 'Natural Born Killers' where he wrote his own lines, and which I thought was the best part of the movie. So after that I decided I'd give 'Rover' a go if I ever got the chance. I got the chance this week when a friend in the US mailed me a copy.

It's not a great movie, and it may have only managed 1.5, until 'I'll Never Do It On a Christmas Tree', which cracked me up.

Plot is pretty basic. Las Vegas pooch gets assassinated by a mob member, who bungles it; ends up lost and finds his way to a farm, behaves horribly until he falls in love with Daisy, the collie on the farm next door (who returns his affections far too quickly to be credible or to have any tension), cracks a lot of jokes (some of which work), and finally has to choose between his original owner and his love interest on the farm.

One offputting thing is that Rover is quite possibly the most butt-ugly animated dog of the modern era. I can see it's meant to be a charicature of Dangerfield, but sheesh.... what they should have done was design a character who wasn't horribly, morbidly ugly and obese, but still embodied Danderfield's _personality_. A bit of ugliness I could handle, but not that much. Because some of the other dogs are really attractively drawn (Raffles, Duke and Daisy, particularly).

And some cudos should be given to Dangerfield for playing the lead roll, conceiving and writing it, writing the songs and being executive producer.

But in the end it's just a rainy day film which hasn't aged too well. It's not a disaster by any means, but it only just staggers over the line to 2 stars.

Rover Dangerfield is, indeed, heavy on the Dangerfield humor, but if you forget that it's a vehicle for a particular comedian and just enjoy Rover as a character, it's not bad. Rover, a pampered Las Vegas pooch, is dumped into the river by his doting owner's gangster boyfriend. He finds himself on a farm, where nothing he knows has any value. After falling in love with the neighbor's dog, Rover decides to shape up and make a place for himself.

The charm of this film is the perverse humor...the dead turkey scene comes to mind, and the song, 'I'll never do it on a Christmas Tree,' More character development would have been good: Rover is totally self-involved to the end, which gets tedious, even when you feel sorry for him. Daisy is the usual bland, dull girlfriend character. Cal the farmer is the only character with any real depth or conflict, and Raffles the sheepdog is likeable, too. The rest of the characters are pretty one-dimensional.

My final call: could have been great, with a little more character work and a little less stand-up comedy from Rover.

Why they didn't just title this film as "Rodney Dangerfield as Animated Dog" is beyond me... this movie is one very long, very painful Rodney Dangerfield comedy sketch. Rover has every one of Rodney's distinctive mannerisms and virtually every line of dialogue is like a stand up comedy oneliner. You can almost hear the 'badum-bump' in the background.

The film is at moments too mature to hit a children's audience and too stupid to hold the attention of adults. After the first hour I began watching the film on fast forward. Not a good sign.

Unless you are a HUGE fan of Rodney Dangerfield and think he's the most brilliant comic of all time, I would advise avoiding this movie like the plague.