Review of All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) by Kanupriya K — 13 Jun 2009

1989 was a great year for animation. Most people think this is because Disney released The Little Mermaid, a great movie which began the Mouse House renaissance. The very same day Mermaid came out, All Dogs Go To Heaven was released. Dark, dirty and disjointed, it couldn't compete with Mermaid, critically or commercially. But thanks to nostalgia, and a love of German Shepherds, unorthodoxy, and underdogs, it is not The Little Mermaid which is one of my all time favorite movies (animated or live-action). It is All Dogs Go To Heaven.

This movie ruled my childhood from ages 3-11, first on a bootleg then on the legit VHS release. And somehow time has made me appreciate this movie even more than I did when I was younger. That wasn't the case with The Land Before Time (though watching that one off a VHS tape in the age of blu-Ray didn't help). It wasn't the case with Robin Hood, either. Part of that may be because of Heaven's level of darkness more befitting a film for much older audiences. Various scenes contain gambling, drinking, smoking, guns, torture, and depictions of Hell. The opening scene is essentially a prison break, and the bulk of the movie centers around using an orphan girl's talents to gain revenge. I guess that sort of material speaks to me better now than it did when I was a kid watching just another animated film.

Content aside, Heaven certainly isn't a 5-star film. Half the songs pop up randomly, seemingly to meet a quota. They aren't bad songs, but they are often misplaced. Because so much is always happening, the plot moves along rapidly while dragging along characters with it; relationships don't get around to developing until the last twenty minutes or so (pacing is actually an issue I have with all of Don Bluth's heyday works, though I believe it's more of an issue of animation budgets and time constraint than bad storytelling; so much to say, yet so little time, one of those "I really wish this movie was longer" situations).

For all its flaws, however, All Dogs Go To Heaven is a flawed gem. It was Don Bluth's last good movie until Anastasia. It raises questions of morality and its impact on the afterlife. Charlie is painted with shades of grey (dark, dark grey for the most part) rather than black or white, making him an even more compelling protagonist. Just like in Fievel and NIMH, Bluth injects his mysticism and creates an animal world parallel to the human world around it- and in 1930s N'awleans, to boot. The animation, though not on the same level as NIMH, An American Tail, or Land Before Time, is still great. In my mind, no one animates mouth and speech movement better than Bluth. And the voice acting is solid as always.

So many non-Disney films get forgotten in the annals of time. In my opinion, Don Bluth pretty much ruled animation in the 1980s, if not commercially (which he pretty much did too) then certainly artistically. The reign began with Secret of NIMH and probably ended with The Land Before Time, though I believe All Dogs Go To Heaven deserves a rightful place bookending the era. As Little Mermaid launched Disney to new heights, All Dogs Go To Heaven was Bluth's studio's last hurrah. But it is a hurrah nonetheless.

"Can't you just wind it back up?".