special lore and language of Richard Adams' rabbit civilisation" and with the fictional Lapine language spoken by the rabbits. Robinson nevertheless complimented the voice acting and the "fresh and pleasant" animation design. The Globe and Mails Jay Scott, on the other hand, described the animation backgrounds of the film as "second-rate shopping mall watercolor landscapes" but praised the film's allegorical aspects (drawing comparisons between the villain General Woundwort and Adolf Hitler), the realistic and compassionate approach to its rabbit characters, and the voice cast. The Daily Mails Margaret Hinxman also praised the voice acting, the "delicious" music, and called the background landscapes "superb", but concluded that "Watership Down is by no stretch of the imagination a Disney-type animation feature film. Sadly, I have to say, if it had been I might have enjoyed it more." However, other critics drew favourable comparisons with Disney, notably Julian Fox in Films and Filming, who called Watership Down "far and away the most exciting and totally involving animated feature since Disney's peak years (ie that period which ended with Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi)." He praised in particular the aesthetics, sound design, and the film's way of humanising the rabbit characters without over-anthropomorphising them. The Guardians Derek Malcolm also complimented Kehaar the seagull's "most Disney-like" animation style even though he found the film as a whole to be "old-fashioned" and the song "Bright Eyes" to be "more than a trifle bland". In a joint review of Watership Down and Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings, animation historian Michael Barrier described both films as "very stupid movies, of a special kind" and that "the films themselves show no sign that any intelligence was at work in making them" due to their "grim literalism" in adapting their source texts. He did describe Watership Down as the "least offensive" of the two but nevertheless characterised the animation style as "graceless" and expressed disappointment that the vision of the film's original director John Hubley was never fully realised. Newsweeks David Ansen also drew comparisons with The Lord of the Rings, but while he disliked Bakshi's film he was more effusive about Watership Down, which he said "has the relentless momentum of a good war movie" and "is swift of foot, graced with wit, and capable of touching the hearts of both children and adults". In a review of the DVD edition, Film Freak Centrals Walter Chaw praised the