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Title: Runaway
Country: Canada
Genre: Romance / Comedy
Company: The National Film Board of Canada
Directed by: Cordell Barker
Year: 2009
MPAA Rating / TV Rating: N/A
Buy on: N/A
The short starts off with the captain driving the train, while a bunch of rich and poor passengers are on the train, having parties. But then suddenly, a cow ends up walking on the tracks and the train ends up bumping into the cow. This causes the train to derail and go out of control on the tracks. With the captain being preoccupied with a rich young lady, the fireman is forced to deal with the out-of-control train to prevent it from crashing.
So, over the years, I have been looking at Cordell Barker's works and one of the works that I took interest in was "Runaway." "Runaway" was quite an interesting short film as it's not only about a train going out of control due to hitting a cow, but it also seems to have a theme about the rich vs the poor. In the film, the rich passengers seemed to be treated much better than the poor passengers and when the train started going out of control, the rich passengers tried to save themselves, while leaving the poor passengers to their fates. Of course, that plot of the story is nowhere near as important as the plot line of the train going out of control and the Fireman trying to stop the train from crashing. I always found the plot line of the train going out of control to be very entertaining because it was hilarious seeing the train hit the cow and suddenly go out of control. Also, the many ways that the Fireman tried to prevent the train from crashing was pretty hilarious to watch. I also really enjoyed the animation of this film. While nowhere as fluid as "The Cat Came Back," the animation does a great job at conveying the insanity of the situation in this short film.
The only problem that I had with this short was that I felt that most of the characters were very flat, with the Captain being the only character who had some personality. I do love the fact that the Captain is constantly laughing throughout the short as it made him look like a madman and he brings some insanity to this short. But the other characters don't really bring much to the story, other than the Fireman and the Rich Lady having a romance with each other.
Overall, "Runaway" is a very interesting animated short. Even though most of the characters, with the exception of the Captain, were pretty flat, the insanity of the train going out of control and the Fireman trying to prevent the train from crashing was really entertaining to watch and I would definitely recommend this short film!
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