The Plague Dogs

The uncharitable might claim that the same heavy hands which mauled Watership Down four years earlier have beaten The Plague Dogs back into the dreary pack of animal tales that Richard Adams' books towered head and shoulders above. Certainly the story of Snitter (a pathetic fox terrier who believes himself responsible for the death of his master and much else besides), his friend (an embittered Labrador), and their escape from an animal research centre into the Lake District and the company of a worldly fox, gains nothing from animation more closely resembling painting-by-numbers than the Disney-type high quality it aspires to. Similarly, Adams' succinct complaint about animal exploitation is reduced to a mute whine. However, the point is at least made, and the sugary coating may make it easier for some to swallow.