Cats Don't Dance Review!

I only saw this last night and I had never heard of it until I saw The Nostalgia Critic's Top 10 Films He Wouldn't Review video and this film interested me!
Cats Don't Dance

Rating: ***
It's basically an animal version of Singin' In The Rain about Danny, voiced by Scott Bakula, a cat who dreams of becoming a Hollywood star with a group of eccentric and lovable animals, despite the fact they're given very minor roles, reflecting on African American actors being given minimal roles around that time in Hollywood films. Danny meets Sawyer, voiced by Jasmine Guy (singing by Natalie Cole), a cynical secretary cat whose dreams of becoming a dancer were shattered. The villain, child actress Darla Dimple, an obvious spoof of child star Shirley Temple, who claims to love animals, hates them and doesn't want them to ruin her stardom with the help of her bodyguard Max.
This was the last ever film for Hollywood legend Gene Kelly, who supervised helping with the choreography for this film, since he died before the film was released and it definitely doesn't disappoint and I can see much of Don from Singin' In the Rain in Danny. This was also the last film for Betty Lou Gershon, the voice of Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians, who plays a smoking fish who can somehow survive on land.
Darla Dimple is a hilarious villain and her song Big and Loud is interesting as it starts off as an influential song for Danny but gradually becomes more threatening when her true intentions are revealed.
Speaking of the songs, they're actually really good and are definitely good for a Warner Brothers attempt at a Broadway style musical animated film, especially Danny's first song, Tell Me Lies sung by Sawyer and my favourite Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now! These were all composed by Randy Newman AKA the composer for the Toy Story films and the Princess and the Frog and they remind me of 30's Broadway muisical numbers. Also, the homages to classic Hollywood films are actually funny like King Kong, The Wizard of Oz and other MGM films past and present (for 1997 present anyway).
The only downside is Danny can sometimes come across as selfish and naive about Hollywood, thinking it's easy getting a part in a film and is a bit gullible since he thought Darla had good intentions, even though he had good intentions for the other animals.
Still, it's a good film and it's enjoyable to watch and it actually works as an attempt to copy the Disney formula in the 90's and it's actually more original than I thought, despite the obvious Singin' In The Rain parallels, which I see as more of a homage rather than a rip off since Gene Kelly did supervise for this film and there is a tribute to him at the end. It's such a shame this was a box office bomb because I would have seen this when it was out, even though I was too young to go to the cinema back then (I was born in 1995!)