HOMEWARD BOUND: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli
Running Length: 1:25 Rated: G
Starring: Robert Hays, Kim Greist, and the voices of Don Ameche, Michael J. Fox, and Sally Field Director: Duwayne Dunham Producers: Franklin R. Levy and Jeffrey Chernov Screenplay: Caroline Thompson and Linda Woolverton Music Direction: Bruce Broughton Released by Walt Disney Pictures
Two dogs, Chance (voice of Michael J. Fox) and Shadow (voice of Don Ameche, sounding oddly like the late John Huston), and one cat, Sassy (voice of Sally Field) make a long trek across the Sierra Nevadas in an attempt to find their way home. On the way, they encounter a number of dangers, including bears, mountain lions, and a violent waterfall. Meanwhile, their owners (Robert Hays and Kim Greist) find out about their disappearance and begin a frantic campaign to locate the missing pets.
Obviously written for children, HOMEWARD BOUND is filled with trite cliches, unbelievable coincidences, and poor acting (on the part of the humans). At least it's never boring. In a way that's too bad, because a movie of this dubious quality probably doesn't deserve the kinds of family crowds it's already drawing (is it the name of Disney that's the attraction, the G rating, or the general dearth of family films?).
This movie is another inferior remake, except in this case it's the studio redoing its own property. In 1963, Disney came out with a relatively enjoyable film called THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY. The original had two major advantages over its 1993 counterpart: it didn't use human voices for the animals (there was a narrator instead) and it didn't jump back and forth between the pets and their badly-acted owners.
This would have been a much better movie had the dogs and cat not been given voices. The wisecracking of Michael J. Fox and Sally Field, coupled with the sagely wisdom of Don Ameche, dilutes the adventure. Instead of "humanizing" the animals, it lessens the grandeur of the film. Sure, there are three or four good jokes that wouldn't have been there had the voices been taken away, but a number of the danger sequences would have been greatly enhanced. The struggle of the animals is gone, replaced by something lighter and more crowd-pleasing.
Too much attention is paid to the owners of the pets. Robert Hayes does a pitiful acting job, and the writing for the scenes with the humans is so embarrassing that at times I found them difficult to watch. Perhaps the movie was short on running time, so material better left on the cutting room floor was included. If that's the case, it was an ill-advised move. Even had the quality of these scenes been better, their placing in many cases breaks up the pacing established by the pets' odyssey.
I have one additional small complaint. HOMEWARD BOUND contains a scene where a little girl is encouraged to approach Shadow, a dog she has never seen before. Because he looks so harmless, she moves forward and throws her arms around him. This is not a good lesson to be teaching children. Contact with strange animals should be avoided, not encouraged.
As family fare, the movie is relatively inoffensive. The scenery is pretty and some of the wilderness scenes are enjoyable, if only for the skill shown by the handlers in getting the animals to do some of the things they do (although this film is nowhere as remarkable as THE BEAR). Overall, however, HOMEWARD BOUND is not a good example of film making or entertainment. As an episode of THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY, it would be fine, but as a major motion picture, it's less-than-marvelous.
Rating: 6.9 (C+, **)
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
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