Decent production, but hard to identify with

Rating: 4/10 (10 December 2004)

First, I can see why people may feel the need to criticize the story of this movie. After all, it's been done a few thousand times. Keeping in mind that a young child has probably only seen the story played out a few dozen times, though, I can let that slide.
What I would inform parents about, however, is that this roughly seems to be a hip-hop culture flick as much as a children's flick. The musical turns are to that culture, as are most pop culture references. A number of children in the theatre when I attended did not seem interested in the characters. My guess is that they couldn't identify with the characters, or understand some of their behaviours, because they don't share the cultural experiences. While I support diversity in a film's characters, it really only works when children can empathize with the bulk of the characters.
And is it necessary to put images of seemingly stoned rastafarians in a children's movie? It seems to me that, as is the case with many Disney and other animated efforts in the past 70 years, only supports racial stereotypes.
Overall, though, the story is simple and may have a valuable lesson for the child who is actually able to stay with the film to the end. There are just too many obstacles to arriving at the end, regardless of how visually appealing the film may be. Take care.