I just saw it! And it's GREAT!!

Damn.

That was a good movie.

I'm just sad it was the last one.

It's similar to "The Emperor's New Groove" in that it's more of a "cartoon" than an "animated feature" (what's the difference, you ask? Aniamted features--like Snow White, Pinocchio, and Brother Bear--are typically dramatic films set in a quasi-realistic fantasy world, while cartoons are primarily comedies and feature all the viloence, sight gags, and other such elements we associate with slapstick humor).

But "Home on the Range" is funny. Hella funny. It kept me laughing all the way throughout.

It's also fast-paced. Hella fast-paced. And violent (cartoonily violent. Particularly its "blink-and-you'll-miss-something" climax, which I may need to go back to see again because I was laughing so hard that I may have missed parts of it. Disney most definitely (and literally) went out on a BANG.

But it's highly recommended. I'd say it's just a notch below "The Emperor's New Groove" and "Lilo & Stitch," making it better than "Brother Bear," "Atlantis," and that godawful travesty known as "Treasure Planet."

The animation is very well done, with the angular character designs that work surprisingly well when being turned in three dimensions (but hey, that's Disney for you!). The animation is done a lot more in the style of a Warner Brothers cartoon than a Disney picture, in as far as the extreme fast motion, the cartoony movements of the animals (Buck the horse has fantasies of being a Western kung-fu hero--the picture briefly segues into a CinemaScope sequence depicting one of his fantasies)

All the voice work is pretty well done (Roseanne doesn't grate...thank GOD!), with the stand-outs being Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Buck (He did a good job on TOP of a good job...he should voice act more often!), Steve Buschemi (who isn't given terribly too much screen time, but he takes what he's given to town and back), and a hilarious-on-top-of-hilarious cameo voice appearance by PATRICK-freaking-WARBURTON (Kronk from "The Emperor's New Groove")!! Oh MAN; I was on the floor when I heard his voice

For those of you who miss singing DIsney characters, you get one last song in this film, and it is the absolute highlight of the picture...and one of the absolute highlights of Disney animation in general..and I can't even tell you what it is without spoiling a major plot point for you. But suffice it to say that I was so impressed that my jaw was moping the floor.

Negatives? Well...there's a few gratuitous "Deep Canvas" 3D background shots in this film...I guess today's audiences have such a [thing] for 3D that they absolutely REQUIRE 3D camera moves in a film that really doesn't need any. They ARE well-done, nonetheless.

*SIDENOTE*: I went to a showing with lots of old people and tiny babies with their parents...and only me and the parents seemed to be having a good time (same problem with "The Emperor's New Groove"). Sure you got a kid laugh every now and then, but the kids got a bigger response out of the trailer for "The Spongebob Squarepants Movie" that ran before the film started than they did for the film itself. Their parents had a better time than they did. Today's kids ain't got much taste, do they? (j/k) :)

I stayed during the end credits and read them all (as I always do for any film), and I almost began to cry as I was reading some of the names of folks who'd been working on Disney films for decades and decades before that...like Shawn Keller, who animated Lucky Jack the peg-legged jackrabbit (someone cut off his lucky rabbit's foot) and Bruce W. Smith (the director of "Bebe's Kids" and the creator of "The Proud Family"--and yes, he's a Negro) who was lead animator on Pearl the farm lady. And ink-and-painter Carmen Sanderson, who had been working for Disney so long that she was an ink-and-painter on Pinocchio back in 1940.

The grand majority of them folks are out of a job.

But this is a very, VERY nice film and it'll stand as a monument to a great American art form and great American entertainment.

And I will be back to see it again.