Film conversations: Oggy and the Cockroaches: The Movie

Okay, enough of the serious stuff that I have been writing on in the last few posts.  Let's talk about our animated heroes and their antics.

My daughter, who is well informed about these issues, thanks to her hours of dedicated TV gazing, informed me that the Oggy film was being premiered on TV (here in India)!  Apparently the film, originally called Oggy et les Cafards, Le Film, was released in 2013.  Having discovered the joys of watching Oggy and his friends over the years, I decided to join my daughter, as Oggy, Jack, Bob and the cockroaches took us through four short stories in their movie début.  

The first story is set in the pre-historic days, when Oggy and the roaches evolved through single celled organisms.  The battle between good and evil; between black and white - although sometimes it is just between grey and grey - begins very early, even when our heroes are in a single celled state!  Oggy's uncle, the fireman, orders Oggy to go to the volcano to fetch a pail of... well, fire.

Jack goes along with him, and so do the roaches, just to trouble him and steal his fire.  However, they end up falling inside the volcano, and find that there is another world there.  The hostile region is ruled by that troubled dog, Bob.  His henchmen try to capture the cat brothers to eat them, but they are helped by Olivia, who also teaches them to make fire by rubbing stones.  It is a happy ending when the fire bearing brothers make it back to their domain with Olivia.

The second story is about Oggy trying to rescue the princess Olivia from a castle where she is held captive by the roaches.  But, our blue French feline is a bit of a sissy this time!  He is into embroidery, much to the utter disdain of his father, the king, who wants him to be a brave warrior!  Nevertheless, helped by the animals who are with Olivia - just as they were with Cinderella and Snow White - and his brother, Jack, Oggy manages to rescue the princess.

We move ahead by several eras now.  The third tale is set in London, where the queen is celebrating the birth of a new century.  Jack, this time is Sherlock Holmes, and Oggy, Dr Watson!  Olivia, the troubled damsel, visits them at Baker Street (shouldn't that be Meow Street?), and asks them to retrieve the missing key and bomb.  Once again, the roaches are the culprits, and after much fighting inside the Big Ben, the feline detectives prevail.  But they cannot stop the clock from falling on the queen, who strangely selects the spot directly below the Big Ben for her party!  She should have known better!

In the final story, we are in the future.  This means it is Star Wars time, and Bob, who has an ambition of world domination, deploys the roaches to wreak havoc.  Our French jedi draw out their neon laser swords, while Oggy goes for the... what else, the laser roach swatter!  

Once again, like the TV series, our viewing experience is enhanced by the Indian treatment given to the French goings on.  The voices of Shah Rukh Khan, Sunny Deol, Nana Patekar, Prem Chopra and Shakti Kapoor further animate the characters!  The hilarious dumb ass looks of the characters, superb animation by the French creators, and the inspired Hindi film voice makeovers work like magic together.

It is great fun to watch and listen to Oggy's 'nahin chodoonga...!', Jack's 'Oi Oggy, mere bhai...', the voice over's 'achcha hai...', or, my favourite, Bob's 'thakk thikk...'.

Highly enjoyable movie.  Go for it with the full family.

Thakk thikk... sorry, just felt like saying that again!




Reference:
Oggy and the Cockroaches: The Movie, Director: Olivier Jean-Marie, Xilam & France 3 Cinema 2013

Image sources:
http://ex.inquirer.net/files/2013/09/oggy_moviet.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GS_pwSJ8bk0/maxresdefault.jpg

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