Donkey X

2007 "From the producers who saw "Shrek""
4.5| 1h30m| en
Details

The donkey, Rucio, tells the true story of Don Quixote and defends the idea that he wasn't insane, but a very intelligent, passionate and enthusiastic fellow.

Director

Producted By

Lumiq Studios

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Reviews

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
TheLittleSongbird As has been said by the previous commentators, the best thing about Donkey Xote is the animation, which is at least decent and the one component that shows any signs of effort. The character designs are rather derivative (especially the blatant one for the donkey Rucio) and plastic, but there is a good amount of vibrant colour, some of the landscapes are quite gorgeously rendered for low-budget animation and there is evidence of detail and depth in the backgrounds, with the standouts being the nocturnal visuals and a reasonably effective dream sequence.Unfortunately, that is it for the positives for Donkey Xote. The music does have its rousing moments and sense of adventure, but those moments are too far outweighed by the number of times the music is inappropriately used or misplaced and the pop songs just don't gel with the setting or the story (it was like those involved had completely forgotten what the time and place were) and I just didn't see the point in including them.With the characters, they are either gross distortions of the characters in the book, being the complete opposite of what made them so appealing memorable (what is done with Sancho Panza is so bad it's almost offensive), or incredibly annoying, especially the too prominent and quickly irritating Rucio, who has absolutely none of the irreverence and wit of Shrek's Donkey. It was interesting to have the story told from the viewpoint of Rucio, but it did feel too much and went off on a tangent more than it did telling a succinct story.The voices are very uninspired and often sound under-rehearsed or bored, Quixote having very little of his touching dignity. It's the writing and the story that really make Doneky Xote as bad as it is. The script does try to have the vibe of Shrek, but contains none of its wit, clever humour or charm. Everything here feels muddled and leaden, with some very poorly timed and childish jokes, lines that hold no relevance to the story and only adds to the confusion and it feels very anachronistic.The story chiefly suffers from trying to tell a very long and difficult story (also one that very few children will be familiar with) in 90 minutes, it is hard enough compressing and adapting it for live action but while it is laudable it just doesn't translate well for animation of this length and budget. It contains themes that will go over youngsters' heads (and this is not intended to be patronising, this is coming from a person who think children's taste and intelligence are often underestimated), subplots come out of nowhere, are introduced and skimmed over even quicker or are completely unnecessary to the story and it is so rushed and jumps around so much that the film feels really convoluted, some parts incomprehensible, and numerous times it's difficult to tell who's who.Overall, laudable try, considering the nature of the Don Quixote story, but only has the animation going for it. Instead it feels like a mess of Don Quixote and a Shrek rip-off while forgetting all of the ingredients that makes Don Quixote and Shrek as good and memorable as they are. 2/10 Bethany Cox
lover101 My ten year old daughter and I just keep looking at each other in disbelief throughout this whole movie. The plot is awful, hard to follow, thrown together, and a big pile of crap, really. Attempts at humor are thrown in, random, and unfunny. This movie is BAD, and not in a good way. The animation is fairly decent, but as this kind of technology becomes more readily available for low budget producers, more junk of this kind will continue to be put out. It all seemed forced. They forced to get a plot line, they forced to get some humor, and they forced to create an emotional story that would draw the viewer in. I have to tell ya, they fail on every count.
Chrysanthepop From Spain's Barcelona comes a charming and hilarious animated film called 'Donkey Xote'. The title is a reference to Don Quixote (one of the oldest romance-adventure novels). The film has been dubbed in several languages and it is done wonderfully. The plot is a bit strange but the characters are very likable, especially the animals. I feel that a comedy loses much of its humour when dubbed (due to lost in translation) but here it really worked. 'Donkey Xote' works excellently as an English language film but I prefer to watch it in the original Catalan language. The adult humour and other situational comedy provide some laugh out loud moments. This film probably might have done good business internationally, had it been marketed that way. The animation isn't of Pixar or Dreamworks quality but there's plenty more other things to keep one thoroughly entertained. I also loved the numerous references to other movies and pop-culture and the way they were used in the story. The makers were clearly inspired by 'Shrek' (the makers mention it) but much of 'Donkey Xote' even exceeds the charm of its source of inspiration. The last few animated films that I have seen of Spain have been of average quality at best but 'Donkey Xote' is a film with heart and it shows potential that Spain may not be too far behind in the animated films market when compared to America and Japan.
Cedric Sagne Another reviewer wonders whether this is just drinking up EU subsidies, and I have to admit that a rare Spanish venture in animation ended up in a disaster.One - animation is decent, although animals look like old Pixar and Dreamworks, or clones of them * especially the donkey, who is 99% Shrek's Donkey, and the hen, very much like in 'for the birds'.Two - a very complex storyline, based on a very long book with a difficult plot and many subplots... that wasn't a good idea for a cartoon, which gets lost Three - some good second level jokes and some good first level jokes.Overall... too hard for kids, too long, too convoluted. Pity they hired decent animators but poor editors and script writers.