Let's Watch This: "Top Cat: The Movie" (2011)

Hey, guys. I'm in a Hanna-Barbera mood today (mainly because the trailer for HBO Max's Jellystone came out... and it looks awful, by the way), so I decided to post a review of something based on a Hanna-Barbera show. That Hanna-Barbera show is Top Cat.

Top Cat premiered in 1961, another creation of Hanna-Barbera for ABC. Inspired by The Phil Silvers Show, the cartoon focused on a sly alley cat named, well, Top Cat (voiced by Arnold Stang), who led a gang of other cats in a bunch of zany schemes. The show only got one season consisting of thirty episodes, but Top Cat has gone on to become one of Hanna-Barbera's most iconic characters. He's especially quite popular in Latin America.

Which is how Top Cat: The Movie came to be.

This actually isn't the first movie to start T.C., that honor goes to 1988's made-for-TV Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats. But we'll look at that movie another time. Top Cat: The Movie (or, as it's called in its home country of Mexico, Don Gato y su Pandilla) came out in 2011 in Latin America to great success. Then it was released in the United Kingdom in 2012. Reception in the U.K. and the United States wasn't as good as reception in Latin America. On the flip side, the film does have a few positive reviews on IMDB... but just as many (if not more) negative ones. Seems pretty polarizing.

What do I think of the movie? Well, I won't give that away just yet. You have to suffer through an incredibly long review of a movie based on a show where talking cats attempt to con people out of their money first. Let's get started.

The movie begins with Top Cat (voiced by Jason Harris Katz) relaxing in the sun aboard a yacht... oh, wait, he's not on a yacht, it just LOOKS LIKE he is! You sure had US fooled, movie! How clever you are!

That wasn't sarcasm, this sort of joke is perfectly in-line with the humor from the original show.

One thing I should mention is that the film features Flash-animated characters in CGI backgrounds. I don't know why they decided to go that route instead of animating the backgrounds in Flash too (wouldn't that be much cheaper?) but it doesn't quite result in the effect that they're going for. It looks like when you go into Photoshop and insert a piece of clip art you found on Google Image Search into an actual photo. Maybe it would've looked better if the CGI weren't so BAD...

One of these things is not like the others. Which one is different? Do you know?

"Time for my lunch appointment!" Top Cat announces, and thus off he heads as we get a recreation of the show's theme song. Soon T.C. is sitting outside a restaurant with his right-hand man... er, right-hand CAT, actually... Benny the Ball (Chris Edgerly), munching on what appear to be little finger sandwiches. "What more could an alley cat need than good food and good friends?" he asks... just before seeing an attractive girl cat walk by and ditching Benny to stalk her. Yes, this movie has Top Cat getting a girlfriend. Despite the fact that Top Cat doesn't actually NEED a girlfriend. But then again, I don't think Bugs Bunny needed a girlfriend either, but that didn't stop Warner Brothers...

"After this, Benny, why don't we go steal some pic-a-nic baskets?"
"Wrong Hanna-Barbera cartoon, T.C...."

But before T.C. can catch up with the girl cat, he's stopped in his tracks by a mean-looking bulldog. He identifies the dog as his old pal Griswald (who was voiced by Jason Harris Katz in the UK release of the film, but then dubbed over by Danny Trejo for the US release because I guess they thought it would sell more DVDs). Okay, confession time - I initially thought that this character was just made up for the movie, but a quick trip to the Top Cat Wiki (yes, there's a Top Cat Wiki. Does anything NOT have a Wiki nowadays?) informed me that Griswald did indeed appear in at least two episodes of the original show. Interesting that they chose to bring back such an obscure character.

"No, I'm NOT Muttley! We don't even look that much alike!"

Griswald is ticked off at Top Cat because the flea collar he sold him doesn't work, but Top Cat manages to trick him again because Griswald is apparently a massive idiot. We get a chase scene and then Top Cat catches up with the girl cat. You can tell that this cat is a girl because she has a full head of hair (despite the fact that Top Cat and his pals don't... does this mean that in their universe, they're considered bald?) and a curvy figure (gotta appeal to the furries in the audience).

I looked it up. Unlike Griswald, this character WASN'T in the original show.

She introduces herself as Trixie (Melissa Disney), and tells Top Cat when he starts hitting on her that she doesn't date anyone from the alley. Griswald shows up again, but winds up getting covered in cement before he can mangle Top Cat, and while T.C. is distracted Trixie manages to slip away.

Top Cat heads back to his alley, where Benny is waiting for him... as is Officer Dibble (Bill Lobley). He says that the restaurant the two cats were at before told him about their freeloading, and also that he's up for an important promotion and he wants to make sure that Top Cat doesn't mess it up. Okay, taking all bets! How much for "Top Cat does indeed mess it up at some point in this movie"?

Has Top Cat ever actually been arrested by Officer Dibble? If not, no
wonder he doesn't take Dibble very seriously...

Before he leaves, Officer Dibble warns T.C. to stay away from Connity Hall, where a violinist that Top Cat and Benny really like just so happens to be performing that night... so, yeah. I think it's pretty safe to say that Top Cat will head to Connity Hall and do something to muck up Dibble's chance at a promotion. And among those expected to attend the performance is the Maharajah of... Pikachu? I swear Top Cat said "Pikachu". Anyhow, the Maharajah of Pikachu is apparently well-known for giving away rubies as tips. This gets the gears in Top Cat's head turning, and he comes up with a plan to get himself out of that ally and into Trixie's pants. But first, he has to summon the rest of his gang. Let's see... there's Choo-Choo (Jason Harris Katz again), a pink cat who I'm just now noticing kind of looks like Snagglepuss...

"Top Cat needs me?! Exit, stage left, or stage right, even!"

Spook (Benjamin Diskin), who in the original show sounded like a beatnik but now sounds like a surfer dude (I guess surfer dudes are considered the modern equivalent of beatniks?)…

Here's something for you to think about - if Top Cat and his pals are
alley cats, then how did they afford those nice clothes that they wear?
Maybe they made the clothes themselves?

Fancy-Fancy (Matthew Piazzi), who's a suave ladies' man... errr, ladies' CAT, that is... and who also abandons his date when he hears Top Cat calling his name... resulting in said date going over a waterfall presumably to her doom... that's a pretty dark joke, but eh, she had a pretty annoying voice anyway...

Kind of surprised they didn't give him a French accent to really complete
the "suave ladies' man" stereotype. Maybe they were afraid that Pepe Le Pew
would sue them if they did...

And Brain (Jason Harris Katz... yeah, he voices a LOT of characters in this), whose schtick is that he's an idiot. Which makes it amusing that his name is "Brain". Because he doesn't have a brain. Nyuck nyuck nyuck…

Seriously, he makes Pete the Puma look like Albert Einstein.

Once the cats are all gathered in the alley, Top Cat informs them that the Maharajah of Pikachu is in town... and he brought his rubies with him, hintidy-hint-hint-hint. Choo-Choo points out that, according to the newspaper, Officer Dibble is the Maharajah's police escort, and he'd NEVER let Top Cat anywhere near those rubies. That is why Top Cat will disguise himself as the Arabian oil king Ali Katt by... putting on a turban. Not much of a disguise, T.C. I mean, how dumb does he think Officer Dibble is?

I know there was an episode of the show where Top Cat disguised himself
the exact same way, so I can't fault the movie for this, but, seriously, does he
really not expect Officer Dibble to recognize him?

We cut to that night, where the Maharajah of Pikachu (Jason Harris Katz) is arriving at Connity Hall. As I just stated, there was an episode of the show where this exact same character appeared (though he was called the Maharajah of Pookajee rather than the Maharajah of Pikachu) and he ALSO ran afoul of one of Top Cat's schemes while Officer Dibble was in charge of protecting him. In other words, the filmmakers recycled a plotline from the show.

He kind of looks like Mr. Twiddle from the Wally Gator cartoons,
doesn't he?

Top Cat and his crew quickly discover that if they want to get into the concert, they'll need tickets... and the tickets are sold out. Brain suggests that they swipe someone else's tickets, but Top Cat reminds him that they might be con artists, but they do have a moral code: they only steal from folks who DESERVE to be stolen from. And wouldn't you know it, a guy who deserves to be stolen from just so happens to show up!

Gee, I wonder who the film's villain is...

This is Lou Strickland, our antagonist. He makes it very clear that he is a loud-mouthed, short-tempered, misanthropic troll of a guy, making it incredibly satisfying when Top Cat cons him out of his tickets so he and his boys can slip inside. He's also unbelievably ugly and has a very annoying voice (provided by Jason Harris Katz in the UK release and by Rob Schneider in the US release). And it's then revealed that Trixie, that girl cat from before, is his employee. I wonder if that could turn out to be a problem for Top Cat...

Inside the theater, Top Cat has Choo-Choo distract Officer Dibble so he can charm the Maharajah of Pikachu. It's here that we discover Mr. Maharajah is the owner of a tech company that's created some sort of iPhone/suitcase/camera/paperweight gadget. As the concert begins, Top Cat makes a bet with the Maharajah - if the violinist misses a note, Top Cat gets all of the Maharajah's rubies. If he doesn't, the Maharajah gets Benny. With the help of Fancy-Fancy and Spook, Top Cat wins that bet - but the Maharajah can't give him any of his rubies because he's already given them all away as tips.

"Y'know, you look very familiar. Have I met you before?"
"Yes, in an episode of the original show. They recycled the plotline for
this movie."

In place of the rubies, the Maharajah gives Top Cat his iPhone/suitcase/camera thing, and Top Cat and Benny try to sneak out before Officer Dibble spots them. Alas, Benny winds up giving them away, resulting in another chase scene... and also THIS happening:

I have so many questions... the obvious one being WHY IS THERE AN ELEPHANT PREPARING TO PERFORM BALLET IN A CONCERT HALL?

So thanks to Top Cat, Officer Dibble's chances of getting a promotion are the size of Atom Ant... or are they? He gets a call from his superior telling him to come down to the station for an important announcement. He's sure that this means he's going to be the new police chief of New York City!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we never saw the police chief in the original
show, right? This is a banner event for Top Cat fans!

Unsurprisingly, that's NOT what the police chief (Bob Kaliban) tells him. No, no, instead, he just wanted Officer Dibble to meet the guy who he HAS chosen to be his replacement. Wow, way to get his hopes up and then yank out the rug from under him, buddy. And who DID he choose to be his replacement? Why, none other than that Lou Strickland guy! Because surely the best choice for new police chief of New York City is an obviously evil loud-mouthed deranged-looking constantly-aggravated troll who apparently doesn't even have much police experience. I think even BRAIN would be a better choice for police chief than this guy.

Methinks the police chief is a few sodas short of a six-pack.

So WHY is the police chief letting Lou take over? Well, apparently he's his son-in-law and he needed a job. Wait, his son-in-law? That means Lou must be married to the police chief's son or daughter. How could this guy have possibly gotten married? Who in their right mind would marry a guy like Lou Strickland? I can't think of one positive quality that this man has. Is everybody in the police chief's family an idiot?

After the police chief leaves, Lou tells Officer Dibble that he's replaced all of his fellow police officers with computers. Why? Because people can make mistakes, but machines can not. Of course, a criminal can easily destroy a machine by smashing it to pieces with a baseball bat whereas they couldn't do that to a person, so there's at leasst ONE flaw in Lou's plan. The only reason Dibble hasn't been fired yet is because Lou needs SOMEONE to turn on the computers. Oh, and he's also doing a surprise inspection of Dibble's beat.

Remember, kids, brush your teeth frequently or else they'll end up looking
like this guy's.

Strickland being chief of police isn't a good thing for Top Cat, either. Strickland recognizes him as the cat who conned him at the concert the other night, and he vows to get his REVENGE. Then Top Cat, his pals, and Dibble discover that the Strickland standing in the alley with them is just a hologram. And he likes to channel the Great and Powerful Oz.

I'd love to see some random citizen walk by and wet their pants at the
sight of a random giant floating head.

So now Dibble is stuck doing paperwork in a small, dark office, the cats' alley has a giant electric fence in front of it, and Strickland has a million cameras all over the city. Oh, and did I mention his fleet of robot henchmen?

Can't be a generic insane cartoon supervillain without some robot henchmen.

Well, technically he just has the one, but he has a company that can build billions of 'em. All he needs is thousands and thousands of dollars, which he wants the mayor of New York (Bob Kaliban) to give to him. Meanwhile, Top Cat and his crew have enlisted the help of a gorilla (Fred Tatasciore) to take care of the electric fence.

I kind of wish they'd made the gorilla Magilla. Would've been a neat cameo.

Cats: one. Strickland: zero. However, the gorilla is hungry and the cats are out of bananas. You know that old joke "what does a thousand-pound gorilla eat"? Well, the answer to that question really IS "anything it wants to".

Including Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, apparently.

Question: if they have a gigantic, incredibly angry gorilla, why don't they just sic it on Strickland? Then the movie would be over in, like, three seconds. But instead, we have a few minutes of the gorilla beating the crap out of Top Cat and his crew. Oh, and that girl cat Fancy-Fancy was romancing before shows up again. I guess she survived the waterfall after all.

The good news is, the mayor spots the gorilla rampaging through New York on one of Strickland's cameras just as he's about to give the guy a million dollars. When Top Cat appears, he guesses that the gorilla is his doing and refuses to give Strickland any of his money because clearly Top Cat found away around his precious technology. Cats: two. Strickland: still zero.

Strickland is now even more thirsty for revenge against Top Cat, and when Trixie admits that she knows him he comes up with a plan to get that revenge...

"Sir, I'm afraid you've gone mad with power.
"Of course I have! You ever tried going mad WITHOUT power?! It's
BORING! No one listens to you!"

Trixie's job now is to invite Top Cat out on a date and seduce him. When she leaves to take a phone call, Top Cat digs through her purse and finds... some sort of camera with a vacuum cleaner attached to it that allows Strickland to create a hologram of him. Then Strickland has that hologram rob an orphanage.

So when Top Cat returns to the alley, the others start chewing him out for robbing the orphanage despite his insistence that he didn't do it. "You told me that we only robbed people who deserved it. That we lived by a code," Brain points out. As if things couldn't get any worse, then Strickland and his police robot show up. Strickland shows Top Cat and his gang a video that his security cameras took of him robbing the orphanage and dubbing his friends "losers". Predictably, none of the other cats question why the Top Cat in the video is talking in such a stilted fashion and has that robotic sound to his voice. And just to further twist the knife, he knocks over a trash can to reveal bags of money inside, "proving" that T.C. wasn't going to share the money he stole with his friends.

Hello, new potential meme...

So of course Top Cat's gang judges it strictly by how it looks and doesn't stop to think about whether or not this is in-character for Top Cat, or whether or not they should trust an obvious slimeball like Strickland (I mean, I know I probably shouldn't expect them to immediately jump to the conclusion that it's a hologram, but shouldn't they at least be A LITTLE suspicious?). When Trixie shows up, Top Cat realizes that she's in cahoots with Strickland. She claims it's "just what's best for the city" as Top Cat is dragged off by the police robot.

In court, the judge (Bob Kaliban) actually believes that Top Cat could hypothetically be innocent... but then it turns out that the jury consists entirely of Strickland. I don't know much about the legal system, but I'm preeeeeeeeeeetty sure you can't have a jury of only one person. Especially when that person is an obvious slimeball. And apparently Strickland is Top Cat's lawyer, too. Pretty sure that's not how it works either. What, did Strickland pay off the judge or something? Isn't that ALSO frowned upon?

Why didn't they just have a bunch of kangaroos as the jury to make the
fact that Top Cat isn't going to get a fair trial more obvious?

And on top of THAT, Top Cat doesn't even get a trial because the judge saw the video (is EVERYBODY in this film except Top Cat an idiot?). He's sentenced to Cat Jail, but then Strickland tells him that Cat Jail is filled up, so instead he gets sent to DOG Jail. And now that Top Cat's behind bars, the mayor is convinced that technology can indeed keep New York City safe and gives him the money he needs.

I think this picture summarizes pretty much every character in this movie pretty well...

So now Top Cat is stuck in dog jail, where Griswald is waiting for him (he got thrown in there for an overdue library book). Meanwhile, the other cats are failing at life without their leader, and Strickland rules over the city with an iron fist. He vows to put security cameras in every single room of their houses. And he's also got a whole army of police robots to do his bidding.

"Oh wee oh, oh weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee oh..."

In Dog Jail, Top Cat manages to fool the dogs into thinking that he is a dog... and that Griswald is a cat. I see he's decided to use every other character in the movie having the IQ of a loaf of bread to his advantage.

At least the prison warden was nice enough to let T.C. keep his hat and vest...

After that, he starts digging a hole to escape... only to hear Benny's voice through the window. Peeking in, he sees his gang on TV talking about how much he sucks, which depresses him so much that he gives up on trying to escape.

Strickland continues his reign of terror on the city. He gives somebody a one hundred dollar fine for not having an "eating a banana in public" permit. When the guy tosses it in a trash can, he starts charging him for "trash can rental" and "trash can deposit fees". Somebody else gets hit with a twenty-dollar "hat-wearing fee", a one-thousand dollar fee for "carrying a concealed hat", and three days in the slammer. Yeah, by now it should be obvious Strickland's claim that he wants to get rid of crime altogether is just an excuse for him to torture people because that's how he gets his kicks. Plus, it gives him lots and lots of poorly-rendered money, allowing him to channel Scrooge McDuck.

"DuckTales! Woo-hoo!"

"You were supposed to make this city safer! But instead, no one is safe from YOU!" Trixie complains. She angrily storms out of the room, then we cut back to T.C.'s gang. They're miserable, out of money, and (thanks to a convenient rainstorm) soaking wet. "I can't believe T.C. would abandon us like this!" Benny complains.

I'm sorry, WHAT? He didn't "abandon" you. He got thrown in jail for a crime he didn't commit and YOU abandoned HIM.

Anyhow, back in Dog Jail...

Is that Huckleberry Hound in the back I spy?

Top Cat manages to win over the other dogs by serving them better food than what they were being served initially. And, oh, look. There are some dogs that look like Top Cat's crew. What a coincidence. Oh, and their names are Vinny, Spectrum, Einstein, Dandy-Dandy, and Chattanooga.

Can you guess which one is supposed to be which of Top Cat's friends?
Hint: the one that's supposed to be Choo-Choo is the one that's pink.

Officer Dibble is miserable too. Strickland is making him do humiliating things like scrub his toilet. Trixie shows up and shows him a secret file on his computer informing him that the Top Cat who robbed the orphanage wasn't Top Cat (as everyone else had suspected) or a hologram (as I suspected). It was a robot! WHAT A TWIST!

Then Strickland shows up on a secret screen disguised as a picture frame and brags about how he's not even the police chief's father-in-law... which I'm not surprised by, seeing as no man or woman in their right mind would ever marry a guy like Strickland. In fact, the police chief doesn't even have a daughter. Strickland claims that he's just a really good con man, but to be honest, I think the REAL reason why he was able to con the chief is because the chief is just an enormous moron. He sics his robots on Dibble, but he manages to escape, find Top Cat's pals, and tell them that he's innocent.

I hope they all feel really stupid right now.

Unfortunately, Brain destroys the only evidence that Dibble has of Top Cat's innocence (because he assumes that it's what framed T.C.). So instead, Spook suggests breaking Top Cat out of jail. He knows a guy named Gus who's broken out of jail lots of times. Benny starts to think of a way to find him, and the screen fades to black... oh, wait, never mind. It's just an eclipse. That was the funniest joke in the movie.

So, how are they going to get to where Gus (Jason Harris Katz) lives? Easy - Benny has a horse! That's oddly convenient.

Seriously, how did Benny get a horse?

They finally arrive at Gus' place, where Dibble recognizes the rest of his gang: Small Louie, Skinny Moe, Fatty Stan, and One-Eyed Bill (the only one whose name isn't ironic). Fancy-Fancy asks for his help, and conveniently enough it turns out that he owes Top Cat a favor (he fixed Top Cat's vest one day and when Top Cat gave him a dollar bill as payment, he didn't have change for it), so he agrees to help.

I didn't know the Ant Hill Mob moved to New York. Maybe that's why
they weren't in the Wacky Races reboot...

Gus has previously escaped from Dog Jail (why he was sent to Dog Jail in the first place, I don't think they ever mention), so they use the tunnel he dug that time to get in. When they arrive, they discover that Top Cat has transformed the place into a paradise. He's really happy to see them again... but he's still going to give them a hard time for immediately assuming that he's a common criminal and turning their backs on him. Personally, I don't blame him in the least.

"Seriously, you guys believed the obviously evil Strickland over ME? How
long have you known me for? YEARS?"

He goes on to add that he's got NEW friends, in the form of those dogs who look and act exactly like them. Benny apologizes for doubting Top Cat, and of course he forgives them. But how will they get out of jail? Easy - Top Cat tricks one of the robot guards into thinking that he's served his full sentence, allowing him to leave... but not before Benny reveals to the dogs that Top Cat is indeed a cat, resulting in them giving chase.

I do like the gags during this scene with the cats interacting with their
doggy doppelgangers.

After escaping the dogs, Dibble tells Top Cat that Trixie helped them and that she's being held prisoner by Strickland. They run into the police robots, who try to arrest them for loitering and being out past curfew, but Top Cat points out that THEY'RE loitering and out past curfew too. The result: they blow up.

Then we cut to Strickland taking a mud bath, only to be informed that the robots have captured Dibble. He gets thrown in the same jail that everyone else in the city has been thrown in... including Trixie. "Soon, every city in this country will look like THIS!" Strickland cackles.

But, surprise! The robots that captured Dibble are actually Top Cat and his pals in disguise. Dibble is just keeping Strickland distracted. When Top Cat tries to free Trixie, she tells him that the user manual holds the key code for all of Strickland's systems. He keeps it inside a vault in the command center.

"Yep, I'm a cyborg now. Don't ask."

To get past the robots guarding the command center, Top Cat disguises Fancy-Fancy as a girl robot, and as they're chasing after him the rest of the cats sneak in. Now they just have to break down the door to the vault using something really thick... such as, for example, Brain's head.

"Duh, but I don't wanna use my heaaaaaaaaaaaaad!"

So they head into the vault, but Benny winds up tripping a laser that alerts Strickland of their being in the vault. But, Benny also manages to find the manual... which is written in Portuguese for some reason. But then he finds the English section! Choo-Choo finds the self-destruct code, but Strickland traps him, Benny, Spook, and Brain in the vault, then proceeds to brag to Top Cat about how he is unstoppable. He summons his robots to annihilate Top Cat... but then Top Cat gets an idea. He asks Strickland if he built the robots himself. Strickland says no (he's not going to ruin his "perfect hands" with manual labor), he hired somebody in Pikachu to do the job. "I thought that logo looked familiar. I know the maharajah," Top Cat replied, getting out that camera/iPhone/paperweight doohickey that as it turns out can also control the robots.

And here I thought that thing wasn't going to be brought up again...

"Looks like I have control of the city now, Strickland! I demand you free the citizens from jail and tell the people I'M INNOCENT!" Top Cat snaps. Strickland refuses, so Top Cat orders the robots to arrest him. But Strickland still has a self-destruct button, which he promptly pushes, blowing up all the robots and freeing Dibble, the cats, and the citizens. Then Top Cat reveals something else - the iPhone-camera-paperweight-whatever it is DOESN'T control the robots. The robot that he was supposedly "controlling" with it was just Fancy-Fancy in disguise. Ha ha, Strickland just got PUNKED!

Dibble announces that Strickland is under arrest. And Top Cat mentions that he's heard there's no more room in the Human Jail. You know what THAT means, don't you?

Karma sucks, doesn't it, Strickland?

For his role in saving the day, Dibble is rewarded with the job of police chief. Top Cat and Trixie are an item. And Griswald apparently got out of jail and becomes part of the gang!

The end.

What's the Verdict?

This was blah. Very, very blah. First of all, every character except for Top Cat is a massive idiot. Seriously, who in their right mind would look at a guy like Strickland and say, "Yeah. That's a trustworthy fellow!"? Speaking of which, the villain is incredibly annoying and repulsive. The voice acting is hit-or-miss... Top Cat and Benny sound pretty spot-on, but Choo-Choo is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high-pitched and nasally, and Spook doesn't sound ANYTHING like he did in the show. The animation - both Flash and CGI - is mediocre at best. Some of the jokes were funny, I'll admit. And, hey, at least it did SOMETHING with a Hanna-Barbera character that wasn't Scooby-Doo during the early 2010s. There was a long time . I suppose fans of the show would like it fine, but I've seen far better movies based on animated shows.

One more thing... this exists:

No, I'm not going to review it.

Let's Watch This - "Khumba" (2013)

Pop quiz: how many movies are there about zebras? Well, off the top of my head, there are only five. Three of those are the Madagascar movies (though the zebra is only one of the four protagonists, so it might not count). The fourth is 2005's Racing Stripes, which starred a zebra with the voice of Frankie Muniz who wants to be a racehorse. I actually saw that in theaters. Haven't watched it in years, so I don't recall if it was any good or not. And the fifth is the film we're looking at today - Khumba, a 2013 animated film by Triggerfish Animation Studios (you know, the same studio that made Adventures in Zambezia).

The film is about a zebra with the voice of Jake T. Austin who only has stripes on one half of his body. Is it any good? Well, that's what we're going to find out today. I liked Adventures in Zambezia so I'd say there's a fifty-percent chance of this being good too. Let's get started.

Khumba begins with... Master Mantis from Kung Fu Panda.

Where are the rest of the Furious Five?

As the mantis flies off, a narrator welcomes us to the Great Karoo Desert. "Surviving in these parts isn't easy..." he tells us. "You need to be tough and flexible." I imagine that staying hydrated probably helps, too. Then the narrator says that they built an enclosure of sorts to keep "us in and them out - 'them' being everyone who isn't us". But the mantis gets through pretty easily, so...

Anyhow, it turns out that "us" is a herd of zebras who live at the only watering hole for miles and miles. For years, it was a zebras-only location - "until I came along and changed everything!" the narrator exclaims.

I think I know who the film's comic relief character is going to be...

The zebras are playing some sort of weird game with melons and a tumbleweed. One zebra is being all Mr. Awesome. A few girl zebras are swooning over him. A goofy-looking zebra who's totally supposed to be the comic relief character named Nigel (voiced by Alexander Polinsky) goes off to find the mate of a girl zebra named Lungisa (Anika Noni Rose) who's about to give birth.

The mate, whose name is Seko (Laurence Fishburne) arrives just in time to see that Lungisa has given birth to a cute little baby zebra. Everybody thinks the little guy is cute... until it's revealed that - horror of horrors - he's only got stripes on the front half of his body! The other zebras are horrified, but Seko tells his son not to listen to them.

Soooooooooo, it's sort of like Dumbo or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but with
a zebra? Is that what the storyline is going to be here?

One younger zebra - this one a girl - arrives and sees the newborn. "He's funny-looking," she says. "I like him." Gee, I wonder if this younger female zebra is going to be the love interest... you know, the Faline to his Bambi, the Nala to his Simba, the Jewel to his Blu... well, okay, you get the picture.

"What do you even CALL half a zebra?" one zebra asks. Another suggests "Zeb", which everybody else finds hilarious. Actually, a zebra with stripes on only the front half of their body is called a "Quagga". Here's a picture of one:

It went extinct in the nineteenth century. If a pair of zebras were able to give birth to a Quagga, you shouldn't be mocking it, you should be amazed that a Quagga exists after the species went extinct. It's like if you saw a tyrannosaurus rex stomping around the middle of, I dunno, North America and instead of being amazed by the fact that it's there you just stand there and mock it for its tiny arms (by the way, if you did that you would likely get eaten, seeing as it's a tyrannosaurus rex and all).

"You are not half a zebra," Lungisa tells her baby. "Your name... is Khumba." Seko concurs - "Our son, Khumba," he says. Nigel then says, "That's nice!" However, the other zebras are still bothered by the lack of stripes on Khumba's back half. One of them says that perhaps it's a sign of an approaching drought. For some reason.

Seriously, what is it with cute baby animals in animated productions being mocked
for a distinguishing feature that it has? Maybe Khumba, Dumbo, Rudolph, and Nestor
the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey should start a support group...

Well, years go by, and as the years go by the water hole gets dryer and dryer. We see Khumba (Jake T. Austin, as I've stated before) and his love interest, whose name is Tombi (AnnaSophia Robb) racing each other around the zebras' little patch of desert. Tombi wins, and she rubs it in Khumba's face that he got beaten by a girl. However, Khumba isn't bothered by that - he's bothered that other zebras are laughing at him. I'll bet they won't even let poor Khumba join in any of their zebra games, those jerks! "Why do you care what they think?" Tombi asks him, to which Khumba replies, "I DON'T!"

Meanwhile, Seko is talking to another zebra. He says that if it doesn't rain soon, the zebras will have to leave. By the way, take a look at this rock structure that Lungisa is sitting under right now:

Is it just me, or does it look WAAAAAAAAY too much like Pride Rock? This can't be a coincidence...

Unbeknownst to the zebras, however, the villain of the movie is approaching their grounds. Specifically, this guy:

Apparently, the father leopard from Delhi Safari did not take those negative reviews
very well...

Back with the zebras, Seko suggests that, while they wait for the rains, they ration the water. Another zebra, who sounds very much like Hermes from Futurama, likes this idea. "Until the rains come, we'll only drink once a day!" he announces. Some other other, presumably younger, zebras are showing off for the ladies, then they see Khumba and decide to go over and mock him because apparently that's how they get their thrills.

As if Khumba's life isn't sucky enough at the moment, his mother is apparently getting really, REALLY thirsty... judging from the coughing that she's doing, maybe a bit TOO thirsty. Ah, jeez, are they gonna give Khumba the Bambi treatment, too? Hasn't he suffered enough already?

As Khumba walks off, he mutters, "I might be half a zebra, but at least I'm not an ass!" He's referring to Tombi's brother, who's the ringleader of the jerk zebras who were making fun of him. As for me, I'm just shocked that a character in a movie that I'm pretty sure was intended for kids just said the word "ass". Then again, he's hardly the first to do that (coughcoughJiminyCricketfromPinocchiocoughcough)...

For a second, Khumba thinks that his hindquarters have suddenly gained stripes, but as it turns out they're just the shadows of branches on a nearby tree. Then that mantis from before shows up again.

PIXAR hasn't made a sequel to A Bug's Life yet. Manny's gotta pay the bills SOMEHOW...

The mantis starts drawing some sort of map (at least, that's what Khumba thinks it is) in the sand, but before we can get any more information on that Tombi shows up to comfort Khumba. Khumba blames himself for the drought that's been going on. Tombi agrees with me and asks how he could possibly be responsible for the drought. Khumba for whatever reason gets angry and tells her to leave him alone. Before she walks off, Tombi says, "You think you're the only one who has a hard time fitting in?" Apparently Tombi also feels different, but SPOILER ALERT: they're not gonna give us any more detail on that.

Okay, so the mantis returns and flies off through the... briar-fence-thing that the zebras put up to keep them in and other animals out. Peering through it, Khumba is startled by the sight of two gemsbok peering through the briars. "Can you help us?" one of them asks. "Just don't ask me to make it rain," Khumba replies. The gemsbok say that their "wahila" (whatever that means) needs water, and the gemsbok know that the zebras have a big watering hole that they for whatever reason won't share with any other animals so would it be too much trouble to spare some of the water in it? Khumba says that he doesn't know if he's even allowed to talk to outsiders. The gemsboks' "wahila" (who's the one female, so I'm guessing it's their mother or queen or something?) replies that they used to live right alongside the zebras. This convinces Khumba to let them have some of his rations, and he allows them in.

Y'know, the gemsbok look like they just stepped out of Kung Fu Panda too... did this film
have the same character designer or something?

As the gemsbok head on in, Khumba sees that there's actually a big, big world outside their little enclosure. But, oh no! That leopard from before is getting closer! But who cares about him, back to the zebras. The other zebras are none too pleased by the fact that there are "intruders" in their enclosure. One of the zebras replies to the gemsboks' pleas that their "wahila" needs to drink by announcing that their watering hole is for zebras only. "This land belongs to ALL OF US," one of the gemsbok insists. Regardless, the gemsboks' "wahila" says that they should go, as clearly the zebras don't remember that they aren't the supreme rulers of the desert.

The gemsbok leave just in time to run into that leopard, who promptly takes one down before deciding he wants to eat a zebra instead. Nigel recognizes the leopard - "It's Phango! He's at the fence!" he exclaims.

He kind of reminds me of Shere Khan from the live action remake of The Jungle Book...

The Jon Faverau one, not the one with Jason Scott Lee.

Fortunately, the zebras manage to close the fence before Phango can get in. "We need more branches!" Seko shouts. "Come on, close the gap!" After another unfunny joke involving Nigel, Phango starts talking, and it's revealed that he has the voice of Liam Neeson. "You can't keep them hidden from me forever, Makuro," he snarls. Apparently, Makuro is the name of the lead zebra, presumably the old one that sounds like Hermes.

    Here's a screencap of him (he's the one in the middle).

"I can smell your fear," Phango says. "I can almost TASTE IT... if it doesn't rain soon, you will have to let them out..." "If SOMEONE doesn't let him in first!" one zebra snaps - he's referring to Khumba, I guess. Phango plods off, the other zebras leave, and Seko starts chewing out Khumba for putting the herd at risk. In his defense, somebody could've, you know, TOLD Khumba that they can't open the briar-fence-thing because if they do there's a pretty good chance that a psychotic leopard could barge in and devour them all. Just saying.

Khumba visits whose mother, who as it turns out is sick. He gives her some kind of fruit to snack on, and she says that he's just like his father. Khumba denies it - "I'm not like any of you," he says. Working up enough strength to walk out from under Pride Rock, Lungisa tells Khumba why she decided to name him that. "Khumba", as it turns out, means "Skin".

"They say that the first zebras to walk the earth all had the exact same skin," she explains, "With no stripes at all." So, essentially, they were just white horses. But then one day, a brave young zebra took a journey across the vast "currou" (whatever THAT means), and deep inside a huge mountain he found a magic water hole. He swam in it, and when he came out he had stripes on his skin. The other zebras were all "Dude, we want stripes too!" so they all jumped into the magic water hole and gained stripes as well.

Khumba now has an idea. It goes like this -

1) Find magic water hole

2) Gain stripes on his rear end

3) It'll rain, because he and the other zebras still think that his only being a "half-zebra" is what's keeping it from raining despite the fact that it makes no sense

4) As a result, the other zebras will actually LIKE him

5) I dunno, profit?

So he dashes off as his mom says, "Don't you see? They all looked the same..." The story, it appears, was her way of saying that it's good to be different. Maybe she should've shown those other zebras The Sneetches, then this whole mess probably would've been resolved pretty quickly.

Khumba looks at the drawing in the sand that mantis from before drew, and he figures out that it's a map to the magic water hole. Before he leaves, however, he and the other zebras find out that Lungisa has... well, let's just say they did indeed give Khumba the Bambi treatment. It's actually a pretty depressing scene.

And then we cut to a goofy-looking African wild dog wandering around to quirky banjo music. One minute ago it was all sad, and now all of a sudden we've got the humorous antics of a wild dog. Anyhow, the wild dog just so happens to be sniffing around the briar-fence-thing as Khumba is about to leave, and as a result he gets flung into the air as Khumba's walking out and can see the water on the other side.

Eventually, Khumba actually MEETS the wild dog, and it's revealed that he's voiced by Steve Buscemi. I like Steve Buscemi, so having him in this movie is already a great thing for me, but what really impresses me is the performance that he's giving. Usually, when Steve lends his voice to an animated movie, he does something similar to his role as Randall from Monsters Inc. - a really slimy, sinister-sounding thing, even if the character's not evil (Scamper from Igor, the werewolf in Hotel Transylvania). Here, he sounds almost nothing like Randall. In fact, it kind of sounds like he's doing an impression of Larry the Cable Guy. Major props, Steve. Major props.

I think I might have found my favorite character in the movie...

The wild dog, whose name is Skulk, offers his assistance, but Khumba says he doesn't need it. Regardless, Skulk trots after him and insists that he can help Khumba get more stripes, with the help of some sort of "miracle formula" that he has. "Guaranteed to bring out the natural stripe in you!" he claims.

"Git 'er done!"

"I tell you, it works! On ANYTHING! Even a rock!" Skulk announces, holding up a "sample of his work" to prove it. "But if you wanna trek all the way across the carou and back, that's all right by ME." Khumba says that maybe if Skulk shows him how it works, he'll agree to try it. Meanwhile, Tombi (remember her?) is just now finding out that Khumba left. But enough about her, back to Khumba and the Steve Buscemi wild dog.

Skulk tells Khumba that he can have some of his "miracle formula" for the very low price of... a little water for him and his buddies. "I personally know that there's enough water back at your herd to GIVE IT away!" he says. "Saw the wet nozzles with my own eyes! Couldn't hurt for you to ask..." "Believe me," Khumba says, "It COULD. Right now, I'm the last zebra in the world they want to see."

Skulk winds up walking right into the behind of a large wildebeest. Then a British-accented ostrich (Richard E. Grant, who I'm guessing someone at Triggerfish Animation really likes since he also voiced one of the Marbou storks in Zambezia) shows up and insists that he is "an ARTISTE!" after Skulk calls him a feather duster. The wildebeest, whose name is "Mama V" (Loretta Devine), says that she can't remember when the last time she saw a zebra outside the fence was, so Khumba explains to her what's going on.

The next thing he knows, some other African wild dogs show up and channel the Hyenas from The Lion King. Skulk protests that they don't want to eat him 'cause he's their ticket to the water the zebras are hoarding, but the other wild dogs are apparently more concerned with having full stomachs than being well-hydrated. The ostrich, whose name is Bradley, finds Khumba's claim of there being a "magic water hole" a bit strange. "Where IS this water hole?" Mama V asks, to which Khumba replies, "Where the mantis said, I guess!" "The mantis? He spoke to you?" Mama V says.

Bradley says that he saw the mantis once. "He was very complimentary about my feathers!" he boasts. "Maybe not THE mantis, but A mantis! Okay, a stick insect. Point is, he liked my feathers!"

Sooooooooooooo, the ostrich is a stereotypical vain British person, and the wildebeest is
a stereotypical sassy black woman.

Stereotypes - if you make 'em animals, no one is going to complain!

Mama V beats up all the wild dogs, then Bradley says that instead of all three of them going to find this magic water hole Khumba should just tell him and Mama V where it is because "two's company, three's a... no, two and a HALF is a crowd!" Mama V tells him to "tweak the beak".

Bradley is still suspicious of there being such a thing as a magic water hole, but Mama V believes it. "The mantis is an ancient creature," she tells him. "He knows the secrets of the Karoo. And he must have chosen this little guy for a reason." Ah, so this is one of them "THE CHOSEN ONE!" stories, huh?

So Khumba, Mama V, and Bradley head off. Meanwhile, Seko is wondering where the heck his son is. Tombi tells him that he left and that she's gonna go find him, but Seko replies, "We need brave zebras like you. That's why you need to stay here." He then heads out to find Khumba himself.

Then we cut back to Skulk and the other wild dogs. "When... exactly... did you decide that you were going to hold... a zebra... ransom?" one wild dog asks in a weird stilted fashion. Skulk admits that it was "off the cuff". And then, just to make the similarities that these wild dogs have to the Hyenas from The Lion King even more blatant, Skulk winds up running into Phango. Phango wants to eat him, but a terrified Skulk tries to talk him out of it: "Now you're a sophisticated disorning gourmet type. You are what you eat, right?" He claims that he knows where Phango can find a nice, tasty half-striped zebra to munch on instead of him. It works.

"You scavenge so low on the food chain, you couldn't possibly see his power!" the leopard growls. "I've always been a half-full half-empty kind of guy! So sue me!" Skulk says nervously. Phango demands that Skulk show him where this half-striped zebra is.

At the moment, Khumba and his new friends are crossing a road (in the middle of a desert?). Bradley starts talking about how horrible Phango is. "Did you know that he eats his prey while there's still a heartbeat?" he asks Khumba. "He feeds off their fear. THAT'S how he gets his powers! His SUPERNATURAL powers..." Mama V tells him to put a sock in it and suggests that they set up camp for the night.

"And to this day, you can still hear the laughter of the deranged guy with a hook for a hand
on dark, cold nights..."

And then, out of absolutely nowhere, Bradley does a MUSICAL NUMBER. I am not kidding. He's not even singing for half of it, he's just talking to music. The song is about how he once lived on a farm, but the others "ostracized" (get it?) him for being "an artiste" or whatever.

I know that I already made this joke in my review of Delhi Safari, but...

Rio this is not.

After the song, Khumba asks what Mama V's problem is. Hopefully SHE won't sing about it, too. Mama V sadly says that it's not important where she's from, sometimes it's best to just, in the words of Timon, put your past behind you. Meanwhile, Phango is still looking for Khumba... as is Seko, and when he sees Phango's pawprints, he becomes nervous.

Cut to the next morning. The mantis is practicing his yoga, and he overhears Khumba, Mama V, and Bradley yammering as they continue on their way. Khumba takes a pause to stare at... uh, a large fruit salad?

Great, now I'm thinking about the Wiggles...

Khumba spots three peaks that were definitely on the map that the mantis provided for him. Meanwhile, Tombi is showing the other zebras that very map... which Nigel messes up 'cause he's a wacky comic relief character. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Then Seko returns. He tells the others that he's positive Khumba got eaten by Phango. Everybody's bummed out, but Tombi insists that Khumba might still be alive. And then her dad acts like a massive donkey's rear end and says that, hey, now that he's gone maybe it'll finally rain.

We then get a montage of Khumba, Mama V, and Bradley treking to the mountains, but then they get caught up in an antelope stampede. Because I guess they're not done aping The Lion King yet. Fortunately, the antelope are able to stop via a slow-motion shot. Yeah, there are a lot of those in THIS movie, too.

What is it with CGI animated films that I review and slow-motion shots?

The antelope, who have strange accents that I honestly can't identify, explain that they're "immigrating" because there isn't any water. This scene is pretty much a few minutes of the antelope yammering in their weird unidentifiable accents before they help Khumba and Mama V break down the fence in front of them.

Back to the zebras. They're at each other's throats because there's not enough water to go around - in fact, the water hole is pretty much empty. This makes Tombi's dad realize that, hey, Khumba's stripes didn't have anything to do with the rain. Who would've thunk?! Tombi says that they should leave, but her dad points out that Phango's out there, and now that he knows what zebra tastes like he'll likely eat them all as well. So that's the end of THAT suggestion.

Khumba, Mama V, and Bradley, meanwhile, have found the magic water hole. Good, does this mean that the movie's almost over? Because I feel like I've been watching it for hours now...

That's not a magic watering hole, that's the swimming pool at the Grand Floridian.

Khumba and Bradley start swimming in it, but Khumba doesn't gain any stripes. However, they DO wind up attracting the attention of some other animals - one of which is a meerkat voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.

    He looks like a cross between Timon and Sid from Ice Age.

"Welcome to Ying's Animal Sanctuary!" the meerkat greets them. This is where all sorts of African animals can live, be free, and not have to worry about Phango and his evil ways. When Khumba emerges from the water, the animals see that he's only half-striped, and they all think it's COOL. Including this rabbit:

"Hey, can you help me find my way back to the Hundred Acre Wood?"

"Now, the show is at 5:00 sharp," Discount Timon explains. "So if you want food, play to the camera, be on time, and on your game." Khumba insists that he, Bradley, and Mama V should keep moving because this water hole clearly isn't the MAGIC water hole. He's not giving up. He KNOWS it's out there.

As it turns out, the rabbit (voiced by Jeff Bennett) knows where it is, but before he can tell them the show begins. A group of tourists in a jeep show up and start taking photos of all the animals. And one of the meerkats takes a leak. Classy, fellas.

Then somebody in that jeep shoots Bradley with a tranquillizer dart. And then we get... uh, this...

No, I have no idea what that was all about.

Mama V and the rabbit tell Khumba to run, so that's just what Khumba does, the jeeps in hot pursuit. Eventually, they're able to catch him. However, with a little help from the rabbit, he escapes. Sooooooo, that entire scene was pretty much pointless.

"There is only one who knows the way," the rabbit tells Khumba. "Seek the black eagle... if you DAAAAAAAAAAAARE..." So off Khumba, Mama V, and Bradley head.

Then we cut back to Tombi and Seko. Tombi still thinks that they should leave, believing that even with Phango around they've got a better chance of survival out there. "I don't know why I stay either..." Seko admits. "There's nothing left for me here..." He decides that they've all been hiding behind that fence for too long. Speaking of things being too long, isn't this movie over YET?

We cut to Phango still on the trail of Khumba, and then we cut back to Khumba, Mama V, and Bradley. Bradley is complaining about how they had to leave the animal preserve where he could be a star, then goes into an existential crisis. Eventually, Khumba and Bradley enter some crags inhabited by crazy rock hyraxes who apparently worship the Black Eagle. One unfunny scene later and the mighty Black Eagle finally arrives... but before we can finally see this Black Eagle guy, we have to cut back to the zebras. Seku tells Tombi's dad that they're leaving and that he hopes he'll be coming with them. "The herd needs both of us," he says. How does Tombi's dad reply? I don't know, before he does we suddenly cut back to Khumba!

"WHY DID YOU COME HERE?!" the Black Eagle (Roger L. Jackson) demands to know. "To see the freak of nature for yourself?! The only WHITE BLACK EAGLE?!" Khumba says that he needs the eagle's help.

He looks a bit more brown-ish than white in this screencap, honestly...

"And why should I help YOU?" the Black Eagle snarls as he prepares to shove Khumba off a cliff. "Because if I don't find the magic water hole and earn my stripes, the zebras won't have any rain!" Khumba exclaims. The Black Eagle tells him to go, but then Khumba goes all "We're not that different, you and I" on him and he decides to tell Khumba where he can find the magic water hole. He must go through the Valley of Desolation, then the abandoned farm, go around the salt pan, and he'll find it. Oh, and here's something else: it's apparently in Phango's cave.

"There was a time when he was the outcast of the litter," the Black Eagle explains. "Born blind in one eye. Abandoned by his own kind. Little did they know that his blindness would give him a sense of smell like no other leopard before him." As a result, he became a great hunter and got his revenge. What any of this has to do with the magic water hole, I don't know.

Back to the animals at the preserve. The meerkat kids are bummed that Khumba left, but the rabbit explains that he's in "a class all his own" - and so is HE. "We belong OUT THERE! WITH KHUMBA!" he announces. The animals decide to go follow Khumba in the hopes that they'll find a clean water hole. Then we cut to the zebras leaving their enclosure thing. Nigel continues to act annoying. We cut back to Phango for a second, then back to Khumba, Bradley and Mama V. After making it through the valley, they come across the abandoned farm. At the farm, they're ambushed by a deranged sheep (Catherine Tate). Once they evade her, she tells them that Phango's gonna get them if they go to the mountain where the water hole is. And this is where the truth comes out.

Bradley and Mama V are horrified by the idea of going to Phango's cave - turns out he once ate Mama V's baby. Khumba apologizes to them for dragging them out this far before sadly trotting off by himself.

Is the sheep wearing another sheep's skull? That's pretty gruesome, isn't it?

Then we get a montage of Kumba being all sad and moping and doping before cutting to Bradley and Mama V being worried about him. Can we have the Steve Buscemi-voiced wild dog back? He was, like, the one bright spot in this movie...

Phango then shows up and pursues Bradley and Mama V around the valley, demanding to know where Khumba is. Bradley accidentally lets it slip where Khumba is going, and after a pleased-as-punch Phango prowls off, Mama V suggests that they go find Khumba and warn him.

God, I'm so bored by this movie that I can't even think of a funny joke here...

Meanwhile, Khumba collapses from exhaustion in the desert, but fortunately the gemsbok's "wahila" shows up and saves him from being baked under the hot sun. Then we cut back to the Black Eagle and his hyrax worshippers. And then we cut back to the other zebras. They see storm clouds approaching, then run into the animals from the preserve. One of the meerkat kids says that they're following Khumba. Upon hearing that his son is alive, Seko announces that he's going ahead and tells the rest of the herd to follow the rabbit.

Khumba has arrived at the mountain where Phango lives. The storm's a-comin' and a bolt of lightning sets a tree aflame.

With any luck, fire will turn out to be the only thing that Phango is afraid of...

You know, just like in The Jungle Book.

We see the sheep again, then the gazelles, and then... hooray, Skulk's back! He winds up teaming up with the sheep. Meanwhile, Bradley and Mama V arrive at the mountain, and they see Seko running by. "Who's he?" Mama V asks.

Khumba comes across some cave drawings that depict zebras gaining their stripes from the magic water hole. He works up the courage to head inside Phango's cave, and a few minutes later Seko, Mama V and Bradley arrive at the entrance to the cave. Bradley does some stupid Kung-Fu moves.

Tombi and all the other animals arrive at the flaming branch. They have no way to get through it, so all they can do is hope that Khumba will make it out okay. Speaking of which, Khumba finally meets up with Phango and finally finds the magic water hole that will give him stripes.

You can tell that it's magic because it's glowing. And also it's green. Magic water is always
glowing and green.

However, then Khumba realizes that if he goes into the water hole, he'll look just like everybody else, and that being different is a good thing and blah-blah-blah. Then Phango snarls, "It was foretold that a half-striped zebra would be born... and make one of us the most powerful leopard that ever lived! But I killed my own clan so that I... could have YOU..." Khumba makes a run for it, Phango in hot pursuit, and eventually he's cornered at the magic water hole.

"You are the half... the half that will complete me..." Phango growls (which sounds reaaaaaaaally dirty to me). "You can't change who you are, Phango!" Khumba says. Phango replies, "There's only ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!" and pounces, knocking them both into the water. The cave starts to crumble, and soon everyone down below sees water rushing out of it. And soon, Phango and Khumba emerge from it as well.

Could Khumba just defeat him already so I can end this review? PLEASE?

"You're getting under my skin, Khumba!" Phango snaps. Khumba does some jumping from rock to rock as the zebras below cheer him on. One thing leads to another, and eventually Phango ends up falling to his doom. Upon seeing this, Skulk says, "Nice knowin' ya."

But then Khumba winds up falling, too. Everybody gets all sad, it starts to rain, depressing music plays, but of course it turns out that he's okay. Everybody's happy, the magic water hole was apparently bogus as Khumba didn't gain any stripes, but that's okay because Khumba has learned a valuable lesson about how being different is good, the zebras' little slice of desert is now open to ALL animals, the sheep is still insane, Nigel is still an idiot, Jake T. Austin receives a paycheck and I can finally end this review. THE END.

Who rubbed Vaseline on the camera lens?

Oh, wait. The review's not over. I still need to say what I thought of the movie.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

I can sum this film up in one word: BORING. The movie just drags on and on, I honestly felt like it would never end. There are some good things, of course - Steve Buscemi, Jeff Bennett, and Liam Neeson all give great performances, and the animation's solid. But very few of the characters are interesting, the jokes aren't funny, the story's cliched, and the entire film is dull as dirt. This is without a doubt the most boring animated film I've reviewed for this blog yet. If you want to watch a movie by Triggerfish Animation Studios, you'd be better off watching Adventures in Zambezia.

Phew... that's it. The review is over. Nothing more to see here, folks. Move along...