Immigrants L.A. Dulce Vita DVD Review

Not everyone knows the name Gabor Csupo, heck his core audience probably couldn’t even pronounce the Hungarian director’s name, however everyone recognizes his distinctive artwork. One glance at the cover art of Immigrants (L.A. Dolce Vita) will immediately make you say “Rugrats” or “Wild Thornberrys” or perhaps even “Duckman” for those without kids. In addition Mr. Csupo also did animation supervision on early episodes of The Simpsons and directed the less than blockbuster Bridge to Terabithia. That said, Immigrants is not your standard Nickelodeon cartoon fare and not for kids.

Immigrants L.A. Dolce Vita is the story of Hungarian Joska ( Hank Azaria) and Russin born Vladislav (Eric McCormack) two seekers of the American dream who find themselves living in an apartment complex in Los Angeles amid other immigrant families seeking a better life. Much like Steve Martin and Dan Ankroyd in SNL’s early days, the two just want to fit in to American culture and maybe land a couple of large breasted American women along the way. The movie covers the duo’s exploits as they try to find a job despite not having greencards. One of the funnier bits is when they decide that Los Angeles needs a Borsch restaurant and set out to open one with disasterous results including an uncomfortably awkward scene between Vlad and his landlady, a bit actress from Hollywood’s silent era, who has the hots for him, as well as any other man within reach and a subplot where Christina Aguillera’s wardrobe is accidentally destroyed, much to Joska’s delight.

Vladislav and Joska’s neighbors include African American Mr. Splits (Carl Lumbly), Hispanic Flaco (Freddy Rodriguez) and Chinese restaurant owner Mr. Chea. Also making brief appearances is the voice of Spongebob, Tom Kenney, Saturday Night Live star Lariane Newman and Homer himself, Dan Castellaneta in smaller parts.

The movie lasts 77 minutes and has the feel that it was made to be easily broken into 3 or 4 episodes if necessary, such as if Csupo envisioned a possible television series based on the duo. There are no special features included, which is a shame, given some of the big animation names involved in the project. Of course I am always disappointed when animated features do not have making of featurettes and commentary tracks included.

After watching Immigrants L.A. Dulce Vita, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters still remains my Gabor Csupo cartoon of choice. The voicework was quite good and the animation was solid but the story just didn’t really do anything to endear the characters to me. There are funny moment but no memorable laugh out loud scenes. Animation buffs will want to pick this up just for the voice cast and animation crew involved but casual fans may want to skip it.

Immigrants is available on DVD, courtesy of Echo Bridge Home Entertainment, beginning on February 16, 2010.