Since his birth in 1939 as a way for a department store to make more money, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer has a special place during the Holiday season, and has been translated to animation ever since the beginning, most famous being the 1944 short and the 1964 Ranking- Bass film. And in 1998 it finally hits the big screen, and became an mostly bland film.The first problem is it's creator: Goodtimes Entertainment, who has made a living of themselves by making cheap cash-ins to more popular Disney movies. Second problem is the fact that the movie was released for a few weeks in the end of October (does this count as an Halloween movie like Nightmare before Chistmas?).The story is mostly the same as the 1964 version, but than 76 minutes long instead of 50 minutes. It is predictable and didn't have the charm that the original has, and it makes no sense at certain points. Like Why does Santa not punish the elf's who made the villain mad? Why is Rudolph's obvious love interest Zoey hanging out with one of his bully's? Why is an Brooklyn accented fox voiced by Eric Idle? Why is the villain voiced by Whoopi Goldberg?The animation is sloppy and inconsistent. The movements are stiff, characters change color way to often. It is the quality of an direct to video movie.The songs are bad. Some songs sound to much like pop songs and they have no purpose to the story. The only good song is "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney, and I have no idea why it is in this movie.The characters are no really worth mentioning. Only Rudolph comes the closest of having personality. The villain is a joke, becomes a good guy at the end, because Rudolph asked it to her. Santa is barely in the film to have a impact on everything.Do I hate this movie? No, I do not. The story is simple, because the original story is simple, and the voice-acting is good enough. It is by far not the worst Christmas special I have ever seen, but I know better movies to watch during the Christmas days.

I originally reviewed this movie when I was about 14 or 15, And lets just say I didn't really give it a fair try. So after actually watching it nearly all the way through, I can write a better review that doesn't look like some troll wrote it.First off, if you loved the original Claymation original, Stick to it, it's so much better and more well received by the general public. This one isn't too much to love, unless you're from the 12 years and under demographic and you can stomach an hour-long musical.The story is loosely, and inconsistently narrated by 4 fairies, named "The sprites of the northern lights" (Yeah, I have a whole paragraph to dedicate to them, so sit tight.) But the story itself is based around the character of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, a reindeer born with a red nose, making him different from the other reindeers...You know what, You should already know this story.But you don't know the other characters that go along with the story, Lets begin with Slyly the white fox, Who might as well be Tails the fox dragged out of a coloring book, but with the personality of Locke from Final fantasy VI. In short, he's a streetwise (Or in this case, arctic-wise) fox who's philosophy is "It could always be worse." Then we have Zoey the girl reindeer. The 1964 Rudolph movie equivalent of Clarice. and if you've seen the original, it's more or less the same character, just a little less figurine and more animated. Then there's Stormella, And I have to admit, it's comforting to know that Whoopi Goldberg can be both a gentle character as well as someone you just want to slap.Now I promised you a whole paragraph on what I think of the sprites of the northern lights. They totally ruin the movie for me. It's like someone said "lets just throw these fairies in there to tell the story." But damn it, i'll take a singing snowman with some guy pretending to be Burl Ives any day over that. Maybe I really don't like them because I didn't like 4kid's flagship show Winx club either.Bottom line, This is one you might want to check out, it's not Oscar worthy material but if you have an hour you don't have anything planned, it's worth a view. If not you, at least your youngest kids.5/10

Get ready to hear this, but I actually used to like it when I was little, but for some reason I grew out of it.I can't believe I have to live with this abomination. What was the point of making this movie if there was already a Rudolph special in existence? Were the producers afraid everybody would forget about the Rankin-Bass special? I mean, go on to Amazon, type in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", and you'll see how much we've forgotten about it.The animation is beyond terrible, you may as well be letting whatever kids you're babysitting (if that scenario is the case) watch some college graduate's show-reel.The voices in this movie are annoying. I'm very much offended that Eric Idle (who came from the UK) would be using a Brooklyn accent in this movie. I hope he knows how awful this movie is. The fairies that tell the story are utterly annoying.On top of that, the movie has pretty much no silent moment. There isn't one scene in the movie that doesn't have any noise blaring through the speakers. When you put on this movie for any children, your basically just banging pots and pans and dancing like an idiot in front of them for an hour and a half.The songs in this movie are plain terrible, the inclusion of Paul McCartney's "A Wonderful Christmastime" is overly offencive to me. And what sense does it make when Rudolph's singing voice sounds like Justin Bieber on sulphur hexafluoride while his speaking voice sounds like Ash Ketchum?Pardon me if I sound like a sadist, but there are almost no useful scare tactics in the movie! That just makes it whimsical pandering! When a kid cartoon has frightening images, it teaches children that the world is a dark and cruel place. Even the villain is not scary enough.What also annoys me is that rather than the villain, Stormella, simply falling to her death and hip hip hooray, cue end credits, Rudolph and the others just SAVE Stormella from plummeting to her doom even though Rudolph sent her to her near death in the first place! What kind of a lesson is that to teach your children? Just rescue a bad guy from their near death even if they attacked you to begin with? Talk about insulting your child's intelligence!But as if that's not bad enough, Rudolph just wishes for Stormella to be nice, and lo and behold, she becomes a good sport. OK, that's just ASKING for your kids to get critically injured or murdered! That's just BEYOND disrespectful to a kid's intelligence!It's beyond believable this was shown in cinemas before it was tossed into the Safeway bargain bins (if you know what I mean). I wouldn't be surprised if it was a box office bomb, which certainly doesn't matter since this movie probably didn't cost too much to make.All I can say now is that the rest of the family I live with (even my 19 and 18 year old brothers) think this is such a good movie, but this makes Troll 2 seem like The Shawshank Redemption (never seen either films, but you can figure out what I mean). Even A Troll in Central Park is better than this!

Of course it isn't my all time favourite Christmas movie and it isn't as good as the timeless Rankin'/Bass special, but all the same it is very sweet, charming and simple. I for one am disheartened at the 4.8 rating, it is much better than that, of course it isn't perfect, but it is far from the worst animated movie ever. The animation is not too bad, a tad shoddy in places, but fifteen minutes in, the quality got better. I didn't think the songs were awful at all, honestly the songs in Secret Of NIMH 2: Timmy To The Rescue were much worse. In my opinion, they were actually quite cute. One or two of them are forgettable especially the song sung by the elves before Stormella is introduced, but I Hate Santa Claus and Zoey and Rudolph's duet were lovely, and who can resist festive classics like Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and Wonderful Christmas time. I will admit I was annoyed by the sprites, there were a couple of moments where their presence was pointless. The movie also has some nice messaging, I really did feel for Rudolph(I know exactly what it's like to get bullied because of your nose, I used to get bullied because of my singing voice), a good story, if a little slow to start with and some fairly good dialogue. The real delight is in the very lovable characters and highly talented voice cast. Rudolph and Zoey are adorable, and John Goodman makes a suitably merry Santa Claus. Eric Idle and Bob Newhart positively delight as Slyly and Leonard, and despite her limited screen time, Whoopi Goldberg is very impressive as the villainous Stormella. Overall, a very sweet, simple and underrated Christmas movie. 7/10 Bethany Cox