Film: The Night Before Christmas: A Mouse Tale (2002)

As a parent your TV/film days will be mainly about what children like to watch. How I miss those times when programs for children were only broadcast at certain hours and after that it was story time and to bed.

There are 2 story lines.
A family of field mouse getting homeless before Christmas and a human family. The field mice decide to visit their cousin in the city.
If it comes to the mice the parents call another father and mother (yuck) the humans do it a bit better.

They are bulldozering everything, Father mouse yells.
But it's Christmas. I would say do they care and so says Dad after all these are humans (does this sound familiar?)>
What now, asks Mom she was cooking and singing sure her meal would keep the cats away.

It's the night before Christmas, snow, lights, people shopping. Do you have the picture? If it comes to me Christmas Eve only exists in films and this Cartoon isn't an exception. Everyone is jolly and happy, greeting, in good spirits.
Anybody home asks Dad (Charles). No, answers Michael the child behind the computer. How important can Christmas Eve be? It's important enough to email Santa his wishlist on Christmas Eve
Father mouse doesn't want his family to interfere with humans because humans don't like mice. The little mice are hungry while the children wait for Santa because of the presents, lots of presents (nothing about an honest child).
Once the mouse family overnights in the house, the little mice go on an expedition in the Christmas tree. Their goal is to figure out what Christmas is. Everyone they meet has a different opinion about what Christmas is.

Remarks
The bear sounds like Oogie Boogie (Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton). The song isn't bad but the average text is, due to the way it's spoken. This is one of those films you pray your children will not watch over and over again there are better ones and it feels to me that the meaning of Christmas is about gifts dominating too much.


Best characters: The bear (he looks like a fat dog to me) and Santa's elf with an ugly face. According to him, Christmas is all about gifts, buying, wrapping, giving... it's all the elf knows.

The film is loosely based on the poem "The Night Before Christmas and reasonably, lacks depth but you can kill some time with it. The story isn't great.
To me, the voices sound terrible, lack of a natural way of speaking also, humour is missing. The songs make the film better and so do the parts cited about Saint Nick (Saint Nicholas): The Night Before Christmas and you might recognize some other tales.
How relationships develop (from a grumpy, grumbling elf to a friendly waving one) is unclear, but a small child will probably not pay attention to this. After all, a child looks differently than an adult. The story has a happy ending, although that cat will still need some time to understand why he is getting a scolding while he is just doing his job.


Director: Michael Sporn,
Genre: cartoon (animation)


7.12.24