Charlie, a dog out for revenge against his human partner, befriends a little orphan girl.
Genre: Feature Film Family
Rating: G
Release Date: 6-MAR-2001
Media Type: DVD

Average Customer Review: ( 87 customer reviews )
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With a movie based around dogs running a gambling (rat races) and bar joint, it already earns coolness factor among children's fare. As a child of about 9 when this movie was originally released (ten years ago) these references went straight over my head. Strangely the movie is still entertaining, although slipping a bit into typical heartwarming stuff after the introduction of the little girl into the mix (who is being held by Charlie's - the German Shephard-like lead dog voiced wonderfully by Burt Reynolds - nemesis, Carface because she can talk to animals and thus know who will win the day's race.)

Set in New Orleans, the main plot (which the rest is filler really) is Charlie and his partner Itchy return to the joint that Charlie and Carface used to run together (up until Charlie was thrown into the clinker - the dog pound - until Itchy got him out, the great escape is where the movie begins) and under the guise of helping Charlie set up his own place, Carface holds a party at Mardi Gras where Charlie gets a little too sloshed and makes him an easy target for a cleancut murder. All dogs go to heaven of course despite the fact there's little record of our lead actually doing any good in his earthly canine life, but heaven wasn't good enough for Charlie, he wants revenge, so he steals his watch of life, winds it back up and heads back down for Vengeance upon the ones who has done him wrong. That's when his life gets entangled with the little orphan girl (called "Squeaker" by him through most of the movie after a rather cute scene which I won't spoil here), who he 'rescues' for 'using' her for his own selfish purposes instead of helping the child realize her dreams, but his coming to care for her in turn ends up leading to his own true salvation.

A very 'dark' film, in lighting and sometimes even in story, there's many morals to be found underneath, the biggest being that even imperfect people (or animals) have goodness in their heart, they only have to reach out and open their hearts to find it. The badguys are truly bad although the lead villan's Chihuahua looking scrapgoat shows a kinder side sometimes, and are played out kind of like mobsters and not too over-the-top. There are no ridiculous ambitions, simply the doing in of Charlie so that his claim to the business is his void (he'd be dead afterall), which is a refreshing pace from superhero movies. The voice acting is very good in most cases, and a couple of the songs don't even make adults cringe too much (especially the one in heaven is quite nice).

A well done film throughout, which spawned a mediocre sequel and animated series. However, there's no substitute for the original, which is one of the best animated movies to come out of the 90s period. Children will love it, and adults will be able to watch it without feeling too ill or out of place, and those that grew up on it, probably still hold it close to their hearts.

4 of 4 found the following review helpful:

Great movie, poor presentationApr 01, 2011
By baolong
I'm a huge fan of this movie and I was looking forward to the Blu-ray release, especially since the DVD transfer is pretty lousy. Unfortunately, the Blu-ray isn't much of an improvement, and in some ways is worse than the DVD.

First off, the Blu-ray is totally bare-bones. The only extra is the theatrical trailer. There's no top menu, only a pop-up menu which lets you select scenes and toggle audio/subtitles while the film is in progress. This makes setup a real pain, since you have to start the movie, choose your settings, and then restart the movie. There's no recall function, so if you need to stop the film partway through, you'll have to restart it when you return. In addition, you'll need to manually skip through the 20th Century Fox logo and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" ad every time, since there's no top menu to jump to.

As for the film itself, the jumpiness/flicker from the DVD version is gone and the colors are bolder. However, there's still a lot of digital noise--graininess, specks on the screen, etc. Overall the picture looks like something that would be found on a DVD, and compared to the crystal clear Disney Blu-rays, it's extremely disappointing. The bigger problem is that the Blu-ray is presented in widescreen format, despite "All Dogs" being filmed in 1.33:1 aspect. So, the top and bottom of the screen are cut off, and large segments of the background art are lost. Granted, people have always complained about black bars on their screens, and including a cropped-in option isn't a bad idea. But why isn't a matted version there as well? Surely there's enough room on the disc for both?

If you need to get a copy of this film right now, I recommend the DVD version: the picture quality isn't quite as good, but it's in the correct aspect ratio and it has a top menu. Otherwise, hold off until Fox releases a true high-def restoration.



3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

All Dogs Go to heavenMar 06, 2003

Don Bluth's 1989 film, "All Dogs Go to Heaven" is a smart movie in it's own way. I agree with some out there that it does own a darkened tinge to it, but none the less, it's a good movie for most viewers. I, just especially love Don Bluth's traditional animation and movies including, "The Secret Of NIMH" and "The Land Before Time", which were made all around the 1980 decade. I personally think that was when Don Bluth's best and most memborable films were made. Though, back to the subject, this movie definetly stood out in my mind, with it's cute songs, but which could use more work and appear more in the movie, like "You Can't Keep A Good Dog Down". This song was the one with the main character, Charlie, a German Shephered and his loveable friend daschound, Itchy sing in the bar. With refrences to gambling, which in a dog's fantasy world, rat races, and subjects containing killing, can be gestured to adults though it has it's light-hearted, happy-go-luck kiddy moments with the graceful Whppet Annabelle and Charlie romping the the clouds of heaven and the little orphan who Itchy and Charlie take under, Ann Marie's loveable moments with charlie and Itchy. Carface and his sidekick, whose name is forgotten by me, are the nuisence of a villan, who plot to kill Charlie. Charlie who only takes care of and pretends to love Ann Marie, in hopes to pay back Carface with money owed so as he can live. After time and instinces, which the inseprible trio go through, helps Charlie to soon love the little girl. I myself, thought this movie was good if your looking for a movie with a few dark subjects and childish subjects, then this mobie is for you though I don's really recommened it to any child under 6.

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