20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1985)
This is an Australian made-for-television animated film from Burbank Films Australia. The film is an adaptation on Jules Verne's classic French novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).
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Fresh and Exciting
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
The fact that it's animated doesn't bother me, quite the contrary. I love animation and I have enjoyed a lot of Burbank's output(Wind in the Willows especially). But both as an adaptations and on its own terms, I didn't care for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The voice acting is not bad, but I did think the animation could've been smoother and more vibrant, it felt very flat and sometimes even crude to me especially in the character designs. The music didn't leave much of a rousing feeling, overall I found it forgettable, while the writing is stilted with the more humorous parts contrived and the story is too rushed in pace(not helped by the too-short running time) and contains no excitement or sense of enchantment or inspiration. I didn't care much for the characters either, of course I was not expecting them to be as complex as they are in the book or the live-action Disney film(which in all honesty is much more ideal), but I was expecting them to be halfway interesting which they weren't here. Overall, didn't work for me, sorry. 2/10 Bethany Cox
This is another of the novel adapt ions from the novel but of course is different and more simplified for children, the film is quite short and not very humours if you think it will be a comedy, but yet the film is quite surprising in the fact that it delivered the story quite well, the story was good and the animation wasn't half bad. this film makes you want to watch a none cartoon adaption to see thats point of view overall 7 out of 10 for its good story and its underrated animation. The bad points about the film was because of it being short and a children's film it didn't dwell into the characters as it would the book or a full length film, the film also being a cartoon didn't have a audience, the film seemed to be directed at kids with one or two jokes but throughout the film were nothing else to relate to being a children's film.