Animal Farm (1999)

All of this just works. ― Todd Howard

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Animal Farm (1999)
"Comrades" Napoleon cried if he saw this film.
Genre: Drama Directed by: John Stephenson Written by: Alan James Martyn Burke (teleplay) Based on: Animal Farm by George Orwell Starring: Kelsey Grammer Ian Holm Julia Louis-Dreyfus Patrick Stewart Julia Ormond Paul Scofield Pete Postlethwaite Peter Ustinov Photography: Color Editing: Colin Green Production company: Hallmark Entertainment Release date: 3 October 1999 Runtime: 91 minutes Country: United States United Kingdom Language: English Budget: $23 million

Animal Farm is a 1999 television film produced by Hallmark that aired on TNT. It is based on the 1945 novel of the same name by George Orwell.

Qualities That Are Always Wrong

1. The film’s cover tried to make it look like a cute, Disney-esque movie for kids. Those who've read the original book will know otherwise.
2. Bad CGI for the rat.
3. The acting is quite bad, as the performances are inconsistent with the lip-syncing of the animals and their voices usually sounds very dull and have zero energy whatsoever.
4. Frederick, the Hitler allegory, is portrayed too sympathetically.
5. Somewhat poor grasp of the source material: The ending, which tries to reflect the real-life downfall of the Soviet Union, especially sees the animals vowing to do things right and a smiling human family driving to the farm which is in direct contrast to the book's original ending. Not to mention it becomes hard to look at as anything but out-of-touch due to the actual history of post-communist Russia, especially under Vladimir Putin’s rule.
6. Old Major’s death is handled poorly, as he does a backflip in this film whereas in the book, he just rests peacefully and in the 1954 film, he has a stroke, and this portrayal of his death in this film is by far the worst overall.
7. Generic score that doesn't suit the dark tone of the film.
8. This movie softens the tone of the book to an absurd degree and many of the darker moments aren't very dark in the slightest, since the rest of the movie is usually light-hearted and many of the death scenes from both the book and 1954 movie are removed.
9. Benjamin was completely sidelined in favor of Jessie, who wasn't a major character in the book or 1954 movie whereas in that film, she got killed off, and she isn't a very good protagonist for this film due to her character being poorly-written as a result of bad execution on the writer's part.

Good Qualities

1. At least the basic story adheres to the book.
2. Some funny moments.
3. Some heartwarming moments.
4. Most of the animatronics are impressive for 1999.

Reception

Animal Farm won Best Special Effects and was nominated for best film in the 2000s Fantasporto International Fantasy Award.

John Stephenson, the director of the movie, was also nominated for Starboy Award in the 2000s Oulu International Children's and Youth Film.

It currently has a score rating of 6/10 on IMDb and a 38% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.