Lucy & Lionel (1995 Video) User Reviews

Horrible Aristocats Rip-Off

[jeremycrimsonfox · 1/10 · 11 September 2019]

Lucy & Lionel is another abomination from Dingo Pictures, and this had the irony of being released as a PSX game in PAL regions until the title of Nice Cats,

The story is the holidays are here, and Mrs. McDonald goes on vacation with her cat, Lauren, and her two kittens, Lucy and Lionel. Lucy is a real wild child who goes exploring, resulting in her being taken by the cat catcher her mother warned her about. Thankfully, she breaks out with the help of a street cat named Charlie, and now the two must get back to Lucy's family.

Yeah, this is a rip-off of Disney's The Aristocats, as Dingo Pictures is infamous for plagarizing companies like Disney. In fact, Lauren and Marie look a lot like Dutchess. Also, the animation is horrible and the backgrounds look like they were made by children using crayons. Also, the voice acting does not match up with the lip movement and they use the word damn in this a lot, which is shocking since this is aimed at kids (yeah, Secret Of NIMH used the word once, and yet, it got a G rating, but that's for another time). I would never recommend this rip-off to anyone or their child, and would tell them to go buy a Disney movie instead.

A long way from nice

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 23 May 2018]

It is easy to see why the animations of Dingo Pictures are relatively obscure (Youtube is your best bet), though those who have had the misfortune of seeing any of their output (which along with their equally low-budget computer animated counterpart Video Brinquedo have not once made anything worthwhile) cannot forget their awfulness. It is even easier to see why they are universally reviled.

'Nice Cats' may be one of their least bad efforts. Wish that could be said as an endorsement and that it's saying much, but that is not the case. It has two things going for it and even they are not used to full potential. One is that it is short. The other is that it is one of few Dingo Pictures efforts to have some kind of discernible story that was somewhat easy to follow, no matter how generally poorly executed it was.

As said though, there are things that stop them from being complete successes. 'Nice Cats' may be one of Dingo Pictures' shortest, that is not to say that one doesn't still feel every minute of the length and some. They do. No amount of effort went into the lip synchronisation. That is as ever sloppy and doesn't at all match the speaking/narration and treats it like an irrelevant dub.

Laziness and cheapness is all over 'Nice Cats'.

Practically everything that makes Dingo Pictures so bad is present in 'Nice Cats'. The animation is some of the worst there is, so awful it's unacceptable even for low-budget animation. It has flat colours, very simplistic backgrounds and lack of detail and derivative, shoddy, unfinished recycled and creepy character animation as well as a style that makes art of primary school children who draw and paint in half an hour or less seem more accomplished.

Music always sounds misplaced and never fitting with what's going on (like in the journey-related scenes), not to mention that it has little breathing space even in scenes that are in dire need for it. The opening music, while ok, somehow didn't seem like it belonged, more like opening music for a video game. The script is incredibly repetitive and juvenile, some of it making one question who the target audience was meant to be, that it will insult any adult is bad enough but even young children will feel dumber after hearing some of the dialogue here. The best line is the one concerning not finding a hairbrush, memorable for the wrong reasons (namely the shock value and unintentional humour it induces).

Even with the shorter than usual length, the story is dull and doesn't go anywhere a lot of the time, almost minus any charm, emotion, fun or much engaging. It is also extremely derivative, the numerous similarities to Disney's 'The Aristocats' (actually a good film) are glaring and done in a cheap way.

Characters are either irritating or too sugary sweet, though there isn't quite the problem that other Dingo Pictures efforts have in having irrelevant characters, a few add little The sound effects are ill-fitting and creepily bizarre. The voice acting is severely limited and with little energy or emotion, plus the voices are very poorly recorded, too quiet.

In summary, may be one of Dingo Pictures' least bad but it's still very bad regardless. 2/10 Bethany Cox