Heard it described somewhere that this was like “Harryhausen meets Kurosawa” and for all intents and purposes, it was! The stop-motion is not the smooth approach the way Laika does it with their features, but it was never meant to be, and it perfectly works well for this kind of story.
The main antagonist, Mayor Kobayashi, looks exactly like Toshiro Mifune’s character, Kingo Gondo from “High and Low”. Now perhaps that is just my own perspective, but this does have a taste of Kurosawa as the samurai theme from “Seven Samurai” is used prominently, as well as the guitar solo from “Drunken Angel” (I don't think anyone else in the theater was aware of it!
).The best parts of the movie (I thought) went to the four dogs - Rex, King, Boss, & Duke (Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray & Jeff Goldblum), always trying to apply logic to everything!
Using Leonard Maltin’s movie rating, I am giving this a solid *** stars.
