The Old Mill Pond is more of a tribute to the African-American entertainers of the '30s than any denigration of the entire race (Stepin Fetchit caricature notwithstanding). Besides who I just mentioned, there's also frog or fish versions of Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Joesphine Baker, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Louis Armstrong. This Happy Harmonies cartoon from Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising is very entertaining musically with perfect characterizations all around. They all sound so much like the real thing that half of me thinks they could possibly be. If not, they're certainly very flattering impersonations. Even the lazy, shiftless Fetchit characterization gets an exciting workout here when he gets chased by a tiger as "Hold That Tiger" plays on the score. Highly recommended for fans of '30s animation and jazz music.

Well then. I just watched an crap-load of movies--all with varying degrees of quality. I wasn't too sure about which one I wanted to review first. Then it hit me like a sack-a-rats: Rodentz. Warn people about Rodentz. This monstrosity stars nobody and is painfully dull to sit through. And it's about mutant rats killing people. Yeah... real freaking' original. "Food of the Gods," or "Willard" anyone? Those were better than this, and that doesn't say much...
**POSSIBLE SPOILER**Okay here's the story: Inna laboratory the scientist and his plucky assistant are experimenting on rats and their laboratory is in a crappy neighborhood and crappy building and the plucky assistant's moronic friends show up drunk and everyone becomes food for the crazed rats and just about everybody dies and, oh yeah, there's one giant rat that looks crappy, but it gets killed, the end. There, all in once sentence! Spoiler, you say? Ppfff!! I beg to differ! The second we all realize that there's a giant rat, we all know it's gonna die eventually!!**END SPOILER**
Here's the breakdown:
The Good:
--Well, I watched it for free, but for everyone else... hmmm, no. There's nothing good here.
Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:
--Um... well. the gore was decent. --Very average cinematography.
--CG rats not as bad as they could've been in some shots...
The Bad:
--...and in other shots, the CG rats were pathetically cheap-looking. Look, if your film has a low budget, maybe you shouldn't rely on CG. Lesson to take to heart.
--The acting is extremely poor.
--The characters are beyond uninteresting--we have a mish-mash of clichés and none of them are even done that well.
--Booooooooooooring.
--Been done before--plenty of times.
--Stupid story, just stupid.
--Giant rat looks like fat man in poorly conceived bear costume--that was kind of funny--but not funny enough to give this film any worth.
--Retarded, unrealistic, and boring dialog.
--All the college student rat chow people are drinking Tequila from huge plastic milk jugs--and yet they don't appear to be drunk for anything longer than a few seconds. Way to stick with continuity, guys.
The Ugly:
--This film is bad. Simply terrible. Worse than you might imagine. It's not even laughably bad like, for instance, "Scarecrow" (2002) or "House of the Dead." Now those movies are crap you can enjoy. Even if they do make you stupider.
Memorable Scene:
--The lame action-movie ending, complete with uninjured heroes and explosion. Because it didn't feel at all like the rest of this monstrosity--but still sucked.
Acting: 2/10 Story: 1/10 Atmosphere: 2/10 Cinematography: 4/10 Character Development: 0/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 4/10 Nudity/Sexuality: 1/10 (I was tending to my son occasionally during the film, so I may have missed it, but was supposedly in there) Violence/Gore: 4/10 Dialogue: 2/10 Music: 1/10 (average for the time) Writing: 1/10 Direction: 2/10
Cheesiness: 7/10 Crappiness: 9/10
Overall: 1/10
Watch it only if you love rat and vermin-based horror films. Wait... Check that. Don't watch it. It's crap.
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