Even before it was released, there was already rumbling, or rather grumbling, about the remake film “A Kis Vuk,” aka “The Little Vuk,” the animated film based on the story of a little fox by István Fekete. Now, after its premiere, it’s been voted the worst animated film of all time, according to Bors. One of the first bad omens was when Attila Dargay, the director of the original film, declined to allow the producers of the new one to use the likenesses of his animated characters, citing a dislike for the direction of the remake. Since it’s been released a little over a week ago, less than 12,000 folks have bothered to go and see it, and the critics who have, have been nearly unanimous in declaring its suckiness.
Having only seen the original Vuk aka “The Little Fox,” I can’t comment on the new one, but most of the resistance seems to come either from the lackluster 3-D animation, or from trying to make the new version “fresh and contemporary,” which includes the rhymes of none other than Ganxsta Zolee. While the producers for the new version have talked about how good it is, the media, and especially the folks over at Index.hu have been far from gushing in their reviews.
Apparently, at the end of the film, the on-screen narrator tells the children in the audience that evil is no longer allowed in the forest. Reviewing the film for Index.hu, Kati Gőzsy observed that of course there’s no evil in the forest, as it’s already busy working on the sequel.
Our recommendation? Pretend this movie release didn’t happen and watch the original, or get a copy of the original in English somewhere which is not only good, but also used to be shown on American children’s cable channel Nickelodeon, so you know it’s been actually dubbed.
Wow! Considering how much the original already sucked, this has got to be the nadir of suckitude.
Don’t you mean the apex/apogee/zenith of suckitude?
The original didn’t suck, I loved that film! I
remember when it first aired on Nickelodeon way
back in 1987! It rather shocked me a little to
see a film where a fox cub’s family gets killed
and he was left all alone in the care of an uncle
who had to teach him the skills to survive in the
wild. This film came out the same year that also
gave us Disney’s The Fox & The Hound, which in
itself was nothing like this, which was more dark
in it’s lessons on life and shows the consequences
of one’s actions. The English dubbed version of
the film was pretty OK despite the usual
westernization of the names (Vuk being called
“Vic” for example) and the odd choice of a video
distributor to release the film in both version
(one uncut and one edited, though the Nickelodeon
airings were uncut as I recall, which wasn’t that
graphic to begin with, the animators certainly
handled it pretty clean).
This new film sounds like a pathetic cash grab in-
the-making (and no doubt, the “no evil in the
forest” sounds too tacked-on and being very
politically sensitive in today’s rather sheltered
world). Apparently an English version has since
surfaced under the name “A Fox’s Tale”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mubtxYoxmxY
Some years before, and I’m not sure if Dargay was
involved in this or not, but there was a planned
sequel of sorts called “A kis csavargó” or “The
Little Tramp”, which would’ve been hand-drawn
anyway but certainly keeping to the look of
Dargay’s characters and design. Sad that never
went anywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeV1y9Gojpw
I can sorta agree with why Dargay would leave the
production if he had felt CGI couldn’t translate
his work perfectly, or wasn’t convinced by what
was happening here (since it sounds like he had no
input on the script). A shame he’s now passed
away. His final years could’ve been better.