Olive, The Other Reindeer (1999)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

During the release of Futurama, Matt Groening creator of The Simpsons made another classic: Olive, the Other Reindeer! With its cute story and beautiful drawing design that looks like it has come straight out of the Vivian Walsh children's book and onto our screens! After falling out with her owner Tim, Olive mishears from her little friend 'Fido' that one of Santa's reindeer 'Blitzen' has been injured during a test flight and may not be able to pull the sleigh on Christmas Eve. Olive sets out to replace the injured reindeer, meeting new people along the way. Meanwhile, after hearing of Olive's plans to save the Christmas Eve flight, a nasty postman who hates Christmas attempts to derail Olive's plans so that he can put an end to the Holiday once and for all. After a few mishaps, Olive eventually makes her way to the North Pole and finally (after a bit of convincing Santa) saves the Christmas Eve flight with the Postman finally getting his just deserts.This is an awesome movie to watch at the end of the year which adults and children will both like.

Olive is an ambitious little dog who hears that one of Santa's reindeer has been injured and may not be able to pull the sleigh. Olive sets out to set into the place of the reindeer, making a few friends along the way. Meanwhile a bitter mailman sets out to ruin Christmas for all concerned.I caught this early on Christmas Day buried in the middle of every channel trying to put up some feel good programmes and films about Santa and reindeers – mostly animations. This one struck me because how different the animation was – a little weird and off-kilter to be just another banged out Christmas animation. Then I noticed it was produced by Matt Groening – he of Simpsons and Futurama fame. I had hoped that this would be as sharp as some of the better episodes of those series but it didn't quite make it.Generally it was amusing and it did have a few characters that were sharp and delivered one liners and I suppose the whole set up is inventive enough and different enough to stand out from the crowd of feel good animations on this morning. But it wasn't in the same league as Groening's Simpsons episodes. However the humour is sufficient to make it stand out and the voice work helps a lot.Barrymore brings a relentless cheerfulness to Olive and the various side kicks help. Pantoliano is the best voice as the penguin Martini while others include Jay Mohr, Castellaneta, Stipe and MacNicol. It's not star studded which is good as that can often replace a quality product, but the cast are all good enough to deliver on the story's potential.Overall this can't hold a candle to much of Groening's other work but as a competitor for your attentions amongst a host of other festive cartoons then this should easily beat many of the other stocking fillers that the networks serve up to fill the day.

I missed the end of this film! I'm so upset. Now I'll never know if Olive succeeded in saving Christmas. There I was, Christmas Eve, sitting on the couch, flicking channels, waiting for my ride to turn up. A long night of drinking and general carousing awaited. Suddenly I was tuned into Channel 4 and watching a streetwise penguin trying to sell fake designer watches to a talking dog. Well, it happens every day, doesn't it?So anyway, I could talk about plot, like that matters, and I could go on about how funny it was, or how heart warming, but would you really care? Would you? Let me just say this, I was utterly charmed the gloriously flat CGI characters in a totally unique 3D universe. And despite what some of the other reviewers have said, I found Drew Barrymore's characterisation absolutely perfect. Barrymore's squeaky little confused voice was the delightful embodiment of this dopey, self-deluding dog. A dog who manages to convince herself that Santa, after a minor Pre-Christmas Reindeer incident, was relying on 'Olive, the Other Reindeer' and NOT the 'all of the other reindeer' he actually refers to.How could you not love this film?Just thinking about it now, I feel certain that Olive must have helped Santa save Christmas. If she didn't, where did all those presents come from this morning? I was certainly in no fit state to help out.

Olive The Other Reindeer is a very cute movie with one big problem....Drew Barrymore. When it comes to envisioning Olive's voice, they should have gotten someone who can do a voice that is neither male nor female. It needed to be a mix of the two, because it's a cartoon dog! With a female or male voice, it seems too human, and that's where this movie goes wrong. Some people have a good voice for animated characters, Drew Barrymore does not. I know I'm going on and on about Barrymore, but she just does not work in this role at all, and I was kind of disappointed, because the movie could have been so much better. Olive has a great story, and the rest of the casting is perfect. The movie is mainly for kids, but I enjoyed it just the same. The animation is really cool, and very unique. Overall, it's a fairly good movie that could have been a great movie if not for Barrymore.