The Ugly Duckling and Me DVD

A very heart-warming and kid-friendly film, brought up-to-date in terms of some of the plot twists and humour. When Ratso, a slick city rat, sees Ugly (yep, that's his real name), all he can imagine is dollar signs. He plans on exploiting the duckling at carnival sideshows. But, "the best-laid plans of rats and ducks" don't always work out the way we originally want them to. At the Toronto Festival, this was part of the pilot "Family First" series, an outreach of the "Sprockets" Children's Film Festival, so it was unusual but very refreshing to have so many kids in the audience. Their laughter was genuine, and the rest of us had plenty to laugh about as well (Got a teenager in your life? you'll love the scenes of Ugly's very rapid-onset 'puberty'). The animation is crisp and inviting, and the voices in the English language version were excellent.