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ANIMAL FARM – Richard Harvey
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I love it when a score comes out of nowhere, bowls you over with its brilliance, and restores your faith in the genre as a whole. Animal Farm, the latest movie in the continually excellent Hallmark Hall of Fame series for American TV, has done just that, by emerging from the shadow of more popular and well-regarded works such as Merlin, Durango, Moby Dick and the Emmy-winning Alice In Wonderland to take its place as the series’ musical pinnacle. Animal Farm is based, of course, on the classic George Orwell novel, which candidly illustrates the corruptive nature of absolute power and charts the terrible rise of fascism in the microcosm of a farmyard barn. The story, for those who are unfamiliar with the tale, follows a restless pig named Napoleon who, unsatisfied with the current balance of power between the animals, mounts a kind of coup, overthrowing what he sees to be the unfairness of the regime. However, it soon becomes apparent that, having had the responsibility passed on to him, Napoleon is no more objective than those he removed from office. With a voice cast including Kelsey Grammar, Ian Holm, Patrick Stewart, Julia Ormond, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Ustinov and Paul Scofield bringing Jim Henson’s eye-popping animatronic livestock to life, this is arguably the best movie of the entire series to date. Read more…
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