Heidi (1995)
After charming her reclusive grandfather and falling in love with the beautiful mountain he calls home, Heidi is uprooted and sent to Frankfurt where she befriends Klara, a young girl confined to a wheelchair.
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To me, this movie is perfection.
Just perfect...
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Well it is a close toss up between this and Magic Gift of the Snowman(I also love Little Red Riding Hood but marginally prefer these two). Of the Jetlag animations there have been a few disappointments like Alice in Wonderland and Jungle Book, but overall I find them very charming and well done. Heidi is one of the best examples of that. The book is a classic and does deserves good treatment of some kind, and that is what it gets. The animation here makes Heidi(1995) one of the better-looking Jetlag animations, the backgrounds are lush in colour and the character designs are some of the more detailed of the Jetlag character designs. The music is equally delightful, the score has a whimsical charm to it and the three songs Start with a Smile, This is Home and The Very Best of Friends are simply beautiful with good messaging. The script doesn't suffer from over-simplification yet maintains a sweet, simple tone, and the story has much of the book's humanity and heart(which actually to me is more important than complete faithfulness to the text). The characters are really likable, Heidi's kind nature will make children and adults alike warm to her, and the voice acting is solid. All in all, wonderful and I recommend it if you haven't seen it already. 10/10 Bethany Cox