In the movie “Chaplan,” there’s a scene where the star discusses the advantage of silent films when it comes to the overseas market. All one had to do was change the language on the text cards. Animated films share this advantage to some extent. Dubbing a cartoon is doubtless easier than a live-action film, especially if the cartoon has rather crude animation, as does “A Cat in Paris.” Thus, I came into this family movie expecting my kid to have to read French subtitles, but we got to watch it in English, complete with gangsters with cockney accents!
The story is fairly simplistic. A young girl discovers that her cat has been sneaking out every night to run the rooftops of Paris with a cat burglar. Meanwhile, the girl’s mother is a police superintendent focused on capturing the ruthless gangster who killed her husband. The characters are thinly developed, with the exception of the gangster. With his hooked nose and cockney accent, he is quite compelling.
To call the animation in this film crude is not to say it is ugly. The fluid, hand-drawn animation of the characters running across the Paris skyline are beautiful. What the film lacks in plotline, it makes up in humor and visual beauty. It’s a good, family film.
3 stars out of 5
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