Awhile back I had my niece and nephews over for the weekend and I was trying to find something for them to watch. I came across The Littlest Angel on Netflix and started looking at the reviews to see if it was any good. The reviews were mostly negative. I passed on it. When I received a copy of it in my work pile I stared at the cover of the DVD. A little smiling boy and his little smiling dog didn’t look like they could cause too much mischief, and, sometimes the reviews on Netflix can be a bit off. In any case I was obligated to watch it and so I did.

The story of The Littlest Angel begins in Heaven, a beautiful place the film instantly turns awkward, aside from the stiff CGI animation. I mean, what do you think when you think about heaven? Everybody is happy, all your worries are stripped away, and it’s perfect. Right? Well right off the bat we find The Littlest Angel attempting to capture a butterfly and almost being run over by a man on a chariot who yells something snarky back to him. I think he called him puny wings or something like that. Then there’s The Littlest Angels school teacher who berates and belittles him and, I’ll be honest, acts like a jerk most of the time. I’m thinking, if I had younger kids like the people who made complaints about the film on Netflix, this is probably not something that I would have wanted them to watch so far.

The Littlest Angel's issue in the film is that he misses Earth. He begs to be allowed to return to retrieve a box of sentimental things from his home where he hid them, but is told that it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t. Being a small child he does it anyway, in tow is a dog he meets while in heaven that can talk. He arrives on Earth and sets out to retrieve his box and from here the film only gets worse. At one point one woman threatens to rip the wings off of his back. Mind you there always has to be a villain, in this case a whole group of villains, but if you have small children this group of villains may frighten them a bit with the ferocity of their words. In the end the film does have its heart in the right place but getting there is a bit awkward.

The only bonus feature on the disc is a shameless plug for Michigan. Co-producer Rex Piano appears after a short PR clip for Michigan (voiced by who I assume is Tim Allen) and begins to talk about the films he’s directed in several different countries and how camera’s had to be shipped to him for these shoots, but in Michigan they have a place where you can get all sorts of different camera’s. The Michigan Promo must have incited a tax break or something. In any case it runs a few seconds shy of eight minutes.