The Adventures of Mark Twain When accompanying an American Humorist, it's imperative you never mention how funny British Humorists are.Luckily, Mark Twain's guests in this stop-motion movie are from the South.Rendezvousing with Halley's comet, author Mark Twain (James Whitmore) welcomes three Mississippians, Tom Sawyer (Chris Ritchie), Huck Finn (Gary Krug) and Becky Thatcher (Michele Mariana), aboard his futurist airship.While they coast the air currents, Captain Twain regales them with a menagerie of short stories ranging from jumping frogs to Adam and Eve.Meanwhile, the airship careens closer to the comet's tail, approaching their host's ultimate objective.While the claymation can be construed as being too creepy, it is nonetheless well rendered, and lends its self wonderfully to the unorthodox vignettes, which are based on Twain's own work.In the end though, all we can do is hope that that is a comet they're chasing, and not frozen sewage from MIR reentering the atmosphere.Green Light vidiotreviews.blogspot.com

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a strange clay animation, but this takes the cake for all around strangeness. Mark Twain on a crazy, science fiction hot air balloon with some of his characters on board, and his goal is to collide with Halley's Comet. It's weirder than it sounds, and makes even less sense too. The animation is what makes this watchable, and the lack of coherent plot brings it down greatly.Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn go into town to find that local writer Mark Twain is going into the sky in a hot air balloon that looks more like a giant blimp. They sneak on board, along with their friend Becky Thatcher, and Mark Twain tells them his plan to hit Halley's Comet. He also tells them several stories, the most prominent being Twain's take on Adam and Eve. This might be the only claymated anthology movie, and let's hope not too many more are made. This didn't work at all as a feature length film because of it's anthology set up. It feels like a jumbled, disjointed television program.The animation looks good. It's some of the most detailed animation I've ever seen. The characters all look unique and have such expressive faces. Everything is very smooth, and for it's time, and even for now, this was some great animation.It seems the casting directors looked hard, and they found the perfect, most natural sounding voices. Where some cartoons suffer from unnatural sounding characters, this movie has very realistic voices. The voices are so natural and not over the top at all, they mix in well with the spectacular animation to give a surrealistic atmosphere, that seems very real, but at the same time quite askew, as one would expect a film about Mark Twain in a magical balloon would be.So, what was the point of this movie? It must have been to teach children about the written works of Mark Twain, but what child would want to sit through this? Sure, it looks good, but it's a bunch of random stories little children would find boring, and the actual plot of Sawyer and Finn on board Mark Twain's balloon is just bizarre. Some scenes are downright scary. The scariest scene in the movie deals with the kids going into a dark room with a creepy character who spoke through a mask who goes by the name of Satan. Satan destroys worlds, and the kids become confused and scared, which is the same reaction as the audience. It's hard to tell who this was made for. It appeals to no one, but that might be due to the quality of the script.I hated the end theme song about heroes. What a horrible song to end the movies. It's cheesy and very 80's, and doesn't go along with a cartoon taking place in 1910. It would have fit better on Teen Wolf than this.Overall, what we have here is a very odd movie about Mark Twain and some of his characters traveling and telling stories. The animation is top notch, but the plot (or there lack of) is next to none. This features the scariest animated scene ever, and is a truly bizarre psychedelic trip through 1910 (Never thought I'd say that!).My rating: ** 1/2 out of ****. 85 mins. Rated G.

This is some great claymation. Great detail caught in the facial expressions, lots of characters and settings. This film is truly a captivating visual experience. Mark Twain is driving an airship to Haley's Comet into his demise, and his characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have stowawayed themselves on the ship. Some of Mark Twain's other stories are told in the process in claymation, and creation, death, and the afterlife are all explored. This film is not just for kids as it has a very adult sense of humor and some very deep themes. I really enjoyed it more than I expected too, definitely a classic in clay-animation.

I know this is going to sound like hyperbole, but this makes my list of the ten best movies EVER. What a shame it's so obscure. Highly recommended, for older kids and adults. A bit dark and scary for younger kids. The script draws in some of the more obscure Twain works such as The Mysterious Stranger and Tom And Huck Abroad, and does so seamlessly. The claymation is excellent. It really gives you sense of both the humor, darkness, and humanity of Mark Twain. Just a great, great movie, and an excellent overview of Twain and his work. BTW, I believe that there is a later live-action movie with the same title (The Adventures Of Mark Twain), so don't get the wrong one.