[3] I’m a fan of many Disney animated features, but I find Cinderella to be one of the company’s stinkers. My problems are largely conceptual. I’m simply not a fan of a heroine who’s not strong or clever enough to punch her stepmother and evil step-sisters in the face, leave the house where she’s imprisoned, and get a job that pays. Worse still, this young …
[4] In one of Disney Animation’s weaker efforts, a jealous butler seeks to do away with a mother cat and her three kittens before their owner can bequeath her fortunes to the furry little bastards. I can’t blame him, really. The cats are annoying, snobby little characters with sticks so far up their asses, they are incapable of exuding much charm or engendering much sympathy. …
[6] Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) is all grown up. He’s weathered the horrors of WWII, gotten married, had a child, and now he’s caught in the day-to-day grind of working life. Meanwhile, Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, and the other residents of the Hundred Acre Wood have been carrying on without him for ten to twenty years. But serendipity brings them together, and Winnie decides that …
[6] From a technical and artistic point of view, this may be the finest animated film ever made. But it’s also dull. I dislike how the three floating fat ladies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) steal the show, while the prince and princess are given all the personality of tree stumps. Fortunately, artistry goes a long way. Sleeping Beauty is Disney’s most exquisite work. I love …
[5] This live-action Disney flick starts off interesting, with a 12-year old boy suddenly finding himself eight years in the future without having aged a day. Turns out he was the target of an alien abduction, and his abductor now needs his help to get home. The last half of the movie sees the boy flying around in a space craft with an incredibly annoying …
[6] Disney Animation puts a science-fiction twist on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story. The mix of 2D and 3D animation is interesting, especially when you stop to marvel at an animator’s mastery of perspective when 2D characters are seen running through 3D environments while the ‘camera’ moves all around them. The overall design of Treasure Planet is incoherent, though — you never see two of …
[5] There was definitely potential. A dark Disney movie based on Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, about a farm boy’s brave attempt to stop a demonic king from conquering the land with his army of skeletal warriors? Sign me up! Unfortunately, Disney wasn’t willing to go the full mile with PG content (even the current dvd is edited for violence). It didn’t help that their …
[6] This Disney flick may be a minor effort in comparison to the company’s more perrenial classics, but there’s a dated, folksy charm about this all-animal take on the classic Robin Hood legend. The simple story is populated with fairly memorable, endearing characters and a couple of catchy tunes. It’s one of the only Disney movies where even the bit parts shine, from the narrating …
[8] Disney goes Broadway in the first animated motion picture ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (in the days before they rolled out a separate category for the medium). This version of the classic fairy tale is fueled by power-house songs from Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, memorable characters, and a calibre of design and refined skillsmanship unseen for decades in the studio’s output. …
[6] Breakthroughs in technology make the aural component of this sequel superior to the first, while advances in computer-generated imagery often leave Fantasia 2000 feeling cold and clunky. I like the abstract butterfly battle set to Beethoven’s 5th and the Al Hirschfeld inspired New York sequence set to “Rhapsody in Blue,” but the rest of the program is lackluster at best. Flying CGI whales set …
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