Hooves of Fire (1999 TV Movie)
Those Crazy Brits...
16 December 2002
The British have been best known for creating wacky claymation masterpieces, like "Wallace & Gromit" and most recently, "Chicken Run". Around this holiday season, you see A LOT of claymation Christmas stories, i.e. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. So, the creators of "Robbie" think up the idea...what if Rudolph had a son?

But that's not nesscessarly what they were thinking. By the looks of it, they were trying to do a remake of "Rudolph" with certain twist. Nevertheless, "Hooves of Fire", the first Robbie film, tells the story about Robbie the Reindeer, the son of Rudolph. Robbie wants to become a reindeer on Santa's sleigh, just like dear ol' dad. But, of course, there is a conflict. Rather than slicing Rudolph's notorious red-glowing nose, Robbie has a huge honker that he could bounce with. Robbie and his good friend, Donner, throughout most of the 20-minutes of the story, practice for the Reindeer Games, an Olympic-type event held in the North Pole. Robbie wants to impress this other female reindeer, Vixen, who's going with Blitzen, a clithe-jock that you see in practically every 80's teen flick. Robbie trains with an insane reindeer, Old Jingle and he eventually makes it to the games, but trouble (I'm not gonna say) occurs and stalls Robbie. But could he make it? Is that really important?

The voices of the characters are most likely celebrities in England, because I have never heard of them (besides Robbie Williams, who narrates the story.) Recently about a week ago, CBS showed the "Americanized" version of the special, that featured the voices of Ben Stiller as Robbie, Britney Spears as Donner and Jerry Stiller as Old Jingle. All and all, the Americanized version was pretty bizarre. Like I said, those crazy Brits! However, they also showed the follow up story to "Hooves of Fire", with a even weirder "Robbie the Reindeer and the Lost Vikings", whom Stiller and Spears both did, along with "Everybody Loves Raymond"'s Brad Garrett, James Woods and Jeff Goldblum.

Most of "Robbie" is not only bizarre, but also kind of adult subject matter. Donner, along we already know is a girl, has boobs! Reindeer boobs??? In a way, that's kind of Tongue-in-cheek, spite that Britney Spears plays her in the American version! There is also some violence and sexual innuendo. But it's still a fun movie to watch. I hope Amazon.com sells the American version (no offense to the British). Very funny.
0 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed