I'm not one to rag on Blye Migicovsky's animations, while The Count of Monte Cristo didn't do anything for me I for one really liked The Toy Shop for example. While it has been a fair while ago since I saw it, I remember not caring much for this, now I much prefer Disney's short animated film and the 1937 film. That's not to say at all that it was bad, the music was rousing and tuneful, the voice work was decent and the characters were likable enough. The animation quality wasn't so good though, everything seemed rather blocky and the colours overly-bright and gaudy. The backgrounds especially looked as though I was looking at a filtered sunset or something or other. The dialogue read of being simplified but done in a bland and corny way, while the story had the key points but you wished that more time had been spent on them while scenes that weren't so important were a little too drawn-out. I know they had a short amount of time to tell the story in, but the whole telling of it seemed cold as well, the details were there but the charm, heart and fun there wasn't enough of. The action was clumsily handled, and while the characters are at least likable they are sadly not very well developed with some characters seeming to be there to move the story along and little else.
Overall, not bad but could have been better I think. 5/10 Bethany Cox
