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Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #52: Wreck-It Ralph

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)

Before we get into Wreck-It Ralph there’s something I want to say.

See this? This is Loki.

He’s a lying, traitorous, sociopath who brought untold death and destruction on Earth and plotted on several occasions to murder his own foster brother and father.

The ladies of the internet love Loki. And you know what? I get that. He’s charming, he gets all the best lines, he’s got a tragic backstory and he loves his muddah. And he’s played by Tom Hiddleston, who’s a right bit of yum. Ladies of the internet? I get it.

See this? This is Turbo.

Y’all are fuckin’ nuts.

***

I’ve mentioned before how Disney movies often take their sweet-ass time from conception to release (for example, the movie that eventually became Frozen was first conceived in 1937) and Wreck It Ralph is no exception. Disney first toyed with the idea of making a movie set in the world of video games (then titled High Score) all the way back in the 1980s, back when you could be forgiven for thinking that these new-fangled “video games” were just a passing fad that would soon be swept aside by the next big thing.

In hindsight, Disney dodged a bullet by not green-lighting POGS: The Movie.

“What?” I hear you cry (Mouse hears all) “Disney almost made a movie about video games thirty years ago.” Of course they did. This was eighties Disney. Desperate, starving, try-anything-to-seem-relevant Disney.

Make-a-pact-with-the-forces-of-pure-evil-for-a-chance-of-making-some-bank Disney
Oh-God-what-were-they-thinking? Disney.

And frankly, I don’t think we missed out on anything. I’ve mentioned already how I feel that some movies in the canon were made in the wrong era. For example, I will eternally lament the fact that the Peter Pan we ended up with was the pastel-coloured, safe, stultifyingly conservative Restoration era movie we got and not the gorgeous, dark, wild, Tar and Sugar movie that might have been. Wreck-It Ralph is not one of those movies. Wreck-It Ralph is like a wizard. It was neither late, nor early. It arrived precisely when it needed to. Firstly there’s the animation. I’ve made my peace with the notion of CGI canon movies. They’re here to stay, they can be done very well and I just have to live with it. But while I would have loved to see a traditionally animated Frozen or Tangled I can’t say the same about Wreck-It Ralph. This movie needed to be in CGI because, duh, these are computer generated characters. A cel-animated Wreck-It Ralph would just feel wrong. But aside from that, the world of computer games is just such a deeper subject for exploration now than it was in the eighties. There is a culture and lore and mythos to be mined that just wasn’t there thirty years ago. The whole medium is a thousand times broader and more diverse, and in fact some of the very best stuff in this movie is seeing character from vastly different generations and genres of game reacting to each other.

But was the movie worth waiting thirty years for?

Yes. Yes it was. Let there be absolutely no mystery of suspense on that point.

But just for hoots and chuckles, let’s take a look at the film.

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Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #51: Winnie the Pooh

Dearly beloved.

We are gathered here today in the sight of the internet to mourn the loss of our dear friend, traditional Disney animation. TDA had of course been in very poor health this last decade or so, but we had thought he was finally turning the corner. The fact that he had been so close to a full recovery makes the circumstances of his death even more wrenching, especially knowing that his murderer still walks free.

You’re a killer, Harry.

What were you thinking Disney? Sending Winnie the Pooh out, alone and unarmed, against Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? In summer?!

“He knew the risks.”

Well, there’s nothing left now. Traditional Disney Animation is dead. Lower him in.

Oh! Hold off the earth till I have held him in my arms once more!

“Mouse. C’mon buddy. You gotta be strong for Latin America.”

“There is nothing inside me. I am hollow now.”

You’re right. You’re right, I’m sorry.

Gotta get a grip.

A grip…

On Daniel Radcliffe’s lily white pencil neck…NO! BAD MOUSE!

As absolutely crazy as it seems it retrospect, putting Winnie-the-Pooh up against Harry Potter probably wasn’t that outlandish an idea on paper. The two properties are aimed at quite different age demographics, and Disney was probably banking on their movie hoovering up all the younger cinema-goers who’s parents wouldn’t be willing to take them to a movie that is essentially Schindler’s List with wizards.

Oh Disney. Your naive belief that parents have any real control over what their children watch is what makes you so loveable.

And while Pooh was undoubtedly the underdog in this fight, let’s not forget that the Bear of Very Little Brain is also the Bear of Massive Merchandising Revenue. Pooh may in fact be the single most valuable character in the whole Disney stable. So why was this movie absolutely crushed at the box office?

Okay fine, because it went up against fucking Harry Potter, but indulge me, please.

Bad reviews? Oh hell, no. Critics ate this up.

The fact that it was released in summer instead of in winter like most Disney movies? Nah, see I never bought the “People won’t go to see movies that are on at different times than movies like that movie are usually on” concept.

I have a theory.

If you want a ~~bloodbath~~ polite and well reasoned debate, ask a bunch of Disney fans how many sequels there are in the Disney canon. Rescuers Down Under certainly. And Winnie the Pooh. But after that? Is Fantasia 2000 really a sequel considering it has no plot? Is Three Caballeros a sequel to Saludos Amigos? And if it is, does Melody Time make it a trilogy since José Carioca and Donald Duck appear in it too? Hell, you could argue that Fun and Fancy Free is a sequel to Pinnochio because they both feature Jiminy Cricket and are both pant-shittingly terrifying.

But…if you were to ask just a normal person on the street how many sequels are in the Disney canon they’d look at you funny and ask “What’s a Disney cannon?”

Pictured: A Disney cannon.

Y’see, to ordinary movie-goers the concept of a Disney “canon”, the idea that some movies are more Disney than others is meaningless. Disney made it, it’s a Disney movie. QED. Why should they care which part of the company created it? I mean, let’s be honest here, the whole notion of the canon is just a marketing gimmick that allows Disney to put a seal of quality on some of their movies while allowing them to pretend that their less exceptional output somehow doesn’t matter and OH JESUS CHRIST I’VE WASTED TWO YEARS OF MY LIFE.

Now, Joe Sixpack may not really get what the canon is, but he has slowly, and through painstaking trial and error, learnt one very important lesson:

Avoid Disney sequels like the fucking plague.

Rediscovering the original Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was one of my most pleasant surprises doing this blog. It really is a lovely little film. But it wasn’t the last Winnie the Pooh movie to be released by Disney.

Not by a long…

…long…

Alright, screw this, I gotta review to write, you get the idea.

And it’s not like these were all straight to video either, quite a few of those movies actually had theatrical releases. So is it any wonder that the public weren’t queuing down the street for this one? They didn’t know that all those sequels were done by DisneyToons and that the grownups were actually in charge of this one. All they knew was that Disney had released a long string of pretty shitty Winnie the Pooh cartoons (no pun intended, I honestly swear to God). It’s Disney’s fault. They didn’t protect their characters.

You release a movie called “Frankenpooh” you deserve every damn thing that happens to you.

So here we are. This is how it ends. But how does it end? With inspiring last words, or a damp fart as the muscles relax with the onset of death?

Let’s take a look.

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Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #50: Tangled

My housemate Christine is one of those people who only gets around to seeing the movies everyone’s talking about years after the fact.

“Movies cut into nap time.”

This is good for me doing what I do because it means I get a perspective on movies long after the hype has died down from someone who hasn’t been swept up in the groupthink that tends to form around any given movie. Christine finally got off her branch to watch Frozen and Tangled. In that order. And this has led her to formulate what I like to call Christine’s Principle. And the principle is as follows: If you’re going to watch Frozen and Tangled, for God’s sake watch Tangled first because boy howdy does it suffer in comparison. Tangled is not bad. Tangled is in fact quite excellent, but it’s just not Frozen and seeing as they’re both Disney CGI movies featuring blonde princesses, doglike hoofed mammals and some seriously questionable parenting the comparisons are inevitable. And in a way that’s unfair to Tangled because, while it is no question not as good a movie as Frozen, I think there are areas where it is arguably superior. What areas you ask? Well, the animation for one. I remember watching Tangled in the cinema and seeing that scene where Gothel is being hoisted up to the tower on Rapunzel’s hair. The textures and colours are all just so sumptuous and beautiful and I remember thinking for the first time that if Disney never went back to traditional animation I could live with that. Then of course I banished the thought from my mind and spent a week cloistered away scourging my back as penance. But there’s no denying it, this is a gorgeous, gorgeous film. It’s rumoured to be the most expensive animated film ever made and the second most expensive film of all time, and it looks like it. It also has a pretty killer script and I would say a better supporting cast than Frozen. In fact, now that I think about it, what makes Frozen so frickin’ great?

Oh. Right. The songs that will define a generation.

Tangled was huge when it came out, but it’s definitely been overshadowed by its younger sister in recent years. Is it time for a reappraisal? Let’s take a look. Oh, but let’s address the elephant in the room first. Tangled was originally called Rapunzel, but the name was changed to make it more gender neutral to appeal to boys. This move has caused quite a controversy so let me very quickly give my opinion on this pressing issue.

Let’s take a look at the film.

***

The movie begins with our narrator Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) setting up the backstory like the silver tongued devil he is. Long time ago, a teardrop fell from the sun, and instead of incinerating all life on earth, grew into a golden flower. This flower was discovered by an old woman named Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) who found that by singing a certain song, the flower could turn her young again. How did she know the right words? Why a flower? Look, this whole sequence is pretty much a load of plotholes held together by spit and glitter glue. To whit; in the local kingdom the Queen is expecting a baby and, naturally enough, seeing as she’s about to become the mother of a Disney princess her health takes an immediate change for the worst. The king realises that what with his wife about to give birth to a Disney princess it’ll take a miracle to save her, which sounds about right. He has his troops search for this magical flower that he’s heard rumours of…somehow, and they steal it right from under Mother Gothel’s nose.

All in the game, yo.

Um, sorry. As I write this I’m on holiday in the wilds of Wexford with Season 1 of The Wire on in the background so there might be some bleed across. Also, I gotta point this out: Flynn chews Mother Gothel out for hoarding the flower for herself and not sharing its powers, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem with the King straight up stealing it and making it into fucking soup so that no one can ever use it again. I know, I know, he probably doesn’t know how to use the flower properly (even though the rest of his intelligence about this supposedly unknown plant has been right on the money so far). Alright, anyway, they didn’t see the flower’s “Do not use while pregnant” warning label because the Queen gives birth to a baby with a head of golden hair worthy of the god of thunder.

Naaaaaaahhhh…

Unfortunately, Mother Gothel, not content to just fucking die because she’s not royalty, breaks into the palace to get her shit back. Instead she finds the baby and realises that by holding the baby’s hair and singing the magic song she can recover her youth. Gothel steals the child and hides her away in a tower far away in the middle of the forest where no one can find her and raises her as her daughter. So the movie begins and Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is now about to turn eighteen. When designing Rapunzel the Disney team had an interesting challenge. The story basically demands that Rapunzel be a beautiful girl with long blonde hair. The trouble is, a beautiful girl with long blonde hair could very easily end up looking like Barbie and everyone hates that dead-eyed skank. I actually love the design for Rapunzel, which is beautiful but also kind of dorky, with freckles, a faint lisp, a button nose and a slight overbite (although I admit I only noticed that last one when I saw the movie in 3d). Rapunzel is paired with Pascal the chameleon, who is just adorable. The two muse about what to do, and Pascal wants to go outside but Rapunzel says that they need to stay in the tower which brings us to the first song When Will My Life Begin?, which shows all the ways that Rapunzel has been killing time in the tower while waiting for something to actually happen. A great Disney movie needs great songs and unfortunately early nineties Alan Menken was unavailable, leaving us with his less talented brother, early 21st century Alan Menken. As an “I want” song, When Will My Life Begin? just doesn’t have the sense of yearning and urgency that you need in a tune like this. It’s pretty, and the lyrics are fine, but whenever I hear this song it sounds to me less like the anthem of a Disney princess and more like the theme music for a Disney Channel sitcom called That’s So Rapunzel! Meanwhile, Flynn Rider and his colleagues in extra-legal entrepreneurship; the Stabbington Brothers (Ron Perlman), are breaking into the palace to steal Rapunzel’s unused baby tiara…which when I type it out like that is actually a spectacularly horrible thing to do. Flynn was the end result of something called the “hot guy meeting”, where directors Nathan Greno and Matthew Howard got a bunch of female Disney employees together with pictures of guys like Hugh Jackman and Ryan Gosling to cobble together a Frankenstein’s monster of utter hotness.

He does the dishes without asking and his dick is shaped like a Y.

They manage to swipe the tiara simply by virtue of the palace not having bothered to beef up security after that whole “heir to the throne kidnapped by one wrinkled old lady” affair.

“Hey sarge? Do you think maybe one of us should actually be looking at the thing we’re supposed to be guarding?”
“Look, I don’t care what you learned in your fancy seminar, private. Round here we do things my way.”

The three crooks rip and run and flee into the forest where they’re chased by the palace guards. At the tower, Rapunzel is working up the courage to ask Mother Gothel if she can leave the tower to see the floating lights that appear in the sky every night on her birthday. These are actually lanterns that everyone in the kingdom sets alight to guide the lost princess back home. Mother Gothel is a really interesting villain, lacking in power and magical ability but more than making up for it in guile and intelligence. She’s an expert manipulator, which makes sense when you remember that she’s been alive for centuries and has had plenty of time to figure out what makes people tick. In the Princess and the Frog review I complained that there was no real relationship between Tiana and Facilier. Tangled d0esn’t repeat that mistake, and in fact I’d argue that relationship between Rapunzel and Gothel is one of the most fascinating and difficult to unravel hero/villain dynamics in the whole canon. My wife, who frequents crazier neighbourhoods of the internet than I, has had blazing online rows with people who genuinely claim that Gothel is a good mother who’s just trying to protect her daughter. Now, obviously that’s bullshit, but I will admit that I think that Gothel, in her own twisted way, does love Rapunzel. Or at least, as much as a narcissistic sociopath can love anything or anyone other than themselves. But that’s just it. Gothel loves herself, ergo she loves the flower which keeps her young and beautiful, ergo she loves Rapunzel who keeps her young and beautiful. Her love of Rapunzel is borne out of her own narcissism, but it is real. Later in the movie when Gothel comes back to the tower and finds that Rapunzel is gone her reaction is not the snarling rage you’d expect from a Disney villain in this situation (think Jafar losing the lamp) but sheer, blind panic. In short, exactly the reaction of any parent who’s lost their child. But ultimately, I choose to believe that Gothel loves Rapunzel because it just gives the story so much more thematic weight and real-world resonance. Very few of us are kidnapped from an early age to be raised by a stranger for their own nefarious ends, but all too many of us have a parent who genuinely loves us but is nontheless, you know, emotionally devouring us whole. The exchanges between Rapunzel and Gothel, the passive aggressive controlling, the “joking” belittling comments are all things that many, many children have to deal with (not me, let me just state for the record, Momma Mouse is a diamond). But nonetheless, there is a real tenderness to some of their dialogue (“I love you more.. I love you most.”) that makes me think that Gothel has genuinely deluded herself into thinking that everything she does is for her adopted daughter’s good. And if that good is also Gothel’s good, win-win, right? Alright, so Rapunzel asks if she can leave the tower and Gothel knocks this on the head with Momma Knows Best, a comedic villain song in the vein of Poor Unfortunate Souls. Menken does his best work in the movie with fun little ditties like this and I Have a Dream later on. It’s when he tries reaching for the big emotional beats that he comes a cropper. After scaring Rapunzel shitless with tales of red-toothed bandits, ravenous beasts and various members of the Cheney family, Gothel departs. Meanwhile, Flynn has double crossed the Stabbington Brothers…and there’s a surname to not piss off…and made off with the tiara on his own. He’s pursued by the palace guards, the captain of whom is riding Maximus.

“Stallion to a murdered mare. Father to a murdered foal. And I will have my revenge. In this life, or the next.”

Maximus, like Pascal, gets no lines but his various whinnies and grunts are voiced (again, like Pascal) by Frank Welker who has…um…crap…hang on…

Let me just consult “Ye Old Tome of Frank Welker Gags”.

Alright, here’s one: “Frank Welker has voiced more characters than there are freckles on Rupert Grint.” Huh. Well that seems both improbable and needlessly mean to Rupert Grint.

Man, I’m starting to scrape the barrel here.

Anyway, Maximus is my favourite character in this and probably one of my favorite supporting characters in the canon. It’s interesting that Disney already tried the “horse who wants to be a lawman” gag in Home on the Range to miserable effect. It works here though because unlike Buck, Maximus is fucking fantastic at it. This horse is like Judge Dredd with hooves. He gets no lines, but you just know that in his head he refers to Flynn as “Evildoer”. Couple this with some just GODDAMN SUBLIME facial animation and you have one of the all time greats. There’s so many lovely little touches. There’s one bit where Flynn swings on a vine and knocks the captain off Maximus and tries to ride off with him. Maximus stops dead, turns around, and his pupil actually shrinks in rage when he sees that this criminal degenerate has dared to sit on his back.

Maximus tries to get the satchel back which ends with Flynn and Maximus falling off a cliff…

LAZY BASTARD KOOKABURRAS!!!

…and landing deep in the forest. Flynn hides from Maximus and finds himself outside Rapunzel’s tower. He climbs up and immediately gets laid out cold by Rapunzel wielding a frying pan because it’s a breakfast time and she’s serving up some pain. Sunny side up. I’m a writer. Of course in this situation the tricky part is what to do with the body. I’m told. So Rapunzel stashes the unconscious Rider in her closet and finds the tiara in her satchel. Gothel comes back and Rapunzel is about to show her Flynn as proof that she can take care of herself but Gothel goes completely psycho when Rapunzel even broaches the subject of leaving the tower so instead Rapunzel comes up with a plan. She asks Gothel for some new paints from a town that’s three days journey away and Gothel, probably anxious to sweep the whole matter under the rug, agrees. With Gothel gone, Rapunzel takes Flynn out of the closet and ties him to a chair. When he comes to she offers him a deal; if he takes her to Corona (the kingdom, it’s not named in the movie but the Disney wiki’s never steered me wrong yet) and brings her back, she’ll return his satchel with the tiara. Flynn really doesn’t want to return to the scene of the crime and tries desperately to get out of this, even bringing to bear the awesome power of The Smolder.

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Disney Reviews the Unshaved Mouse #49: The Princess and the Frog

God I hate when this happens.

See, here’s the thing. I already knew what I was going to say about Princess and the Frog months ago. I had my arguments prepared, I’d done my research, the only thing remaining to do was to sit down and watch it again before actually writing the review. And then, of course, my opinion of the movie changed pretty substantially and now I’m back to square one. Alright, a lot of you have been asking me my opinion on the Princess and the Frog, and until very, very recently it was this:

Don’t like it. Hugely disappointing. Major flaws. Disney screwed the pooch. To get traditional animation back in contention they needed a perfect ten and we got a five. Mouse not happy.

But then…yeah, I watched it again and it’s safe to say that my opinion has mellowed quite a bit. Not totally. The problems I thought were there are still there. What problems you ask? Three are the problems, and the number of the problems is three.

Tiana

You know, given Disney’s sterling record of diversity it’s kind of amazing that it’s taken this long for us to have an African American princess.

“Ha! Good one!”

I’m actually not being sarcastic. Think about it, since Little Mermaid in 1987, of the seventeen canon movies featuring humans we’ve had Arab protaganoists, Asian protagonists, Native American protagonists, gypsy protagonists, Hawaiian protagonists, Mayan protagonists and even that most reviled and loathed of all minorities…

belle-and-the-beast-in-beauty-and-the-beast-disney-couples-25378817-1280-720

The French.

So, why has it taken them this long? Well, seeing as you’re on the internet you probably aren’t aware of this, but race can be something of a sticky wicket. By which I mean, Disney knew that if they fucked up on this they would be eaten alive so it’s probably not surprising that they took this one nice and slow. And, in my opinion at least, they succeeded. There is nothing problematic about the character of Tiana. She is as positive and progressive a depiction of an African American woman as you could hope to find. On a possibly not unrelated note, she is also really, really, really, really, really boring. Who do I blame for that? The writers? The animators? Voice actor Anika Noni Rose? No. At the risk of being unpopular, I place the blame solely on…

Yes you, people on the internet.

This movie came under an insane amount of scrutiny long, long, before it was even released, with Disney making many changes in response to every new backlash and charge of racism. Now, some of the criticism may have been fair, but honestly some of it just strikes me as petty. For example, the heroine’s name was originally “Maddy” which was changed to Tiana because “Maddy” rhymes with “Mammy”. So, yeah, I know right? Wasn’t that a bullet narrowly dodged? Now I, for one, was unaware that names that happen coincidentally to rhyme with racist slurs are racist by association but I’ll certainly keep that in mind in fut…OH MY GOD!!!

GET HIM THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!!!

So, it’s understandable that the script for this thing feels like it was written by someone walking on eggshells. And yes, obviously writers have to treat the issue of race carefully and with sensitivity, but I think a certain degree of good faith is required on behalf of the audience as well. It’s just the problem with living in a world where any blowhard can get on his virtual soap box and complain about a movie that hasn’t even been released yet and why are you all looking at me like that? But there is another problem with Tiana that goes beyond all of that. Alright, the simplest, most basic story you can tell goes like this. Character A (the protagonist), wants something, and we want to see him get that thing. Character B (the antagonist) wants something that is mutually exclusive to what character A wants, and we don’t want to see him get that. The characters struggle against each other, and from this we get conflict, drama and finally resolution. Now, you can alter and flip and rearrange and deconstruct or just flat out ignore this model in literally an infinite number of different ways but most of the time that’s what it boils down to. The central conflict is the heart of the story. And Tiana exists almost entirely outside the central conflict. She’s essentially an onlooker in her own story. The conflict is between Naveen and Facilier. You could conceivably have a movie just about those two. What is the relationship between Tiana and Facilier? What’s the personal stake? As the old lady once said, where’s the beef?

The Script

Not bad, but really needed to be funnier. And from Clements and Musker we had a right to expect better.

Randy Goddamn Newman

Fine in small doses, don’t get me wrong. But to write a musical you need versatility almost as much as you need raw songwriting talent. Your songs need to be versatile enough to convey an entire emotional spectrum and Newman just can’t do that. There’s an unmistakeable saminess to his songs that make them less emotional beats in the story set to music, and more mere musical intervals (with the exception of Friends on the Other Side, which is awesome.) This is the single biggest problem with the movie in my opinion. There’s enough good in the rest of the movie that a Howard Ashman or Sherman Brothers or Kristen Anderson Lopez could have lifted this up to the realm of the all-time greats.

Well okay, enough about what they got wrong. Let’s take a look at what they got right.

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Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #48: Bolt

You know what’s weird? In Irish, there’s no word for “Yes” or “No”.

You know what else is weird? If you ask someone to imagine “a Disney movie” they automatically think of a Princess movie, something like the world of Giselle in Enchanted. But the Princess movies only make up a small fraction of the canon, 10 movies out of 52. Whereas the talking animal movies comprise a staggering twenty four movies depending on how you count them (Pinocchio, no, the two Winnie the Poohs, yes for our purposes here). So why is it that the Princess movies have such an outsized influence on how the rest of the canon is seen? Well, for whatever reason, it’s the Princess movies that seem to do really well. Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mulan, Tangled, Frozen, all really, really huge hits. And even Pocahontas and Princess and the Frog were not exactly slouches at the box-office. The talking animal movies, by comparison, tend to perform more modestly. Oh, you’ll get the occasional big hit (Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, Jungle Book, The Rescuers and oh yeah, The Lion King) but mostly it feels like their role is to just keep things ticking over until the next Princess movie comes along. And that’s just not right, dammit. Disney have done some if their very best work in this sub-genre. Take today’s movie for example, Bolt, which was released in 2008 and…

Oh my God.

Oh my God, this thing was released in 2008. Obama had been elected by the time this thing came out. I was on Facebook. I was in my current job. I remember this thing coming out as a recent event in my life. It’s just…wow. When I started this blog I was making jokes about Hitler and the Second World War (that came out wrong). I mean, it’s really all coming to an end, isn’t it? Finish line’s in sight.

Ahem. Anyway.

It’s possible to think of Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons and Bolt as a trilogy of the “Pixarification” of Disney. Chicken Little is Disney, trying to be Pixar, Meet the Robinsons is Disney on its way to becoming Pixar and Bolt is basically Pixar. It was produced by John Lasseter and it looks, feels and runs like a Pixar movie. Seriously, they could have slapped a Pixar logo on this and no one would have known the difference. But what kind of Pixar movie is it? Are we talking Toy Story 3? Or are we talking Cars?

Let’s take a look.

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The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

“So that’s why I’ve decided I should go back into therapy. I’m just worried that, what with my last psychiatrist turning out to be an immortal Lich King who tried to trap me in a hell dimension for all time…”

“Your trust was betrayed. And now you worry that you may not be able to trust anyone again.”

“Exactly.”

“Mouse, if I am to help you, you must feel comfortable in opening up to me. Only then can we overcome your issues and help you reach your true potential.”

“My true potential?”

“Yes. You should be killing people. Like, all the time.”

“Huh. Well, I did feed a friend of mine to a shark two weeks ago.”

"Excellent, then we are already on the road to recovery. But first we must deal with your trust issues. I am going to hypnotise you now."

“Excellent, then we are already on the road to recovery. But first we must deal with your trust issues. I am going to hypnotize you now.”

“Okay.”

“Listen to my voice. I am going to reactivate memories that have long since lain dormant. We are going to put you in touch with your inner child.”

“What the…what’s happening?”

“Hey, where am I?”

“What the…who are you?”

“He’s not really here Mouse. He is a psychological projection of you when you were a child.”

“Wow. I got REAL fat.”

“Ah yes. I forgot. I was a real charmer. What exactly am I supposed to do with him?”

“Spend time together. Reconnect. Try and recover the trust and innocence that you once had, and then we’ll be killing people together in no time.”

“Fine. What you want to do?”

“What do you normally do?”

“Honestly, I spend most of my time watching cartoons and then making stupid jokes about them.”

"So…you haven’t actually changed in twenty five years?"

“So…you haven’t actually changed in twenty three years?”

“Well I don’t wet the bed anymore. You want to watch cartoons or not?”

“Okay. Oh! Oh! That one!”

“What? No. It’s AWFUL.”

“Nuh-uh! It’s the BEST MOVIE EVER!”

“Kid, look, I know you have a lot of fond memories of this but, trust me, as someone who reviews animated movies for a living…”

“Really? You get paid to do this?”

“…Fine, let’s watch the movie.”

(more…)

Let’s all take a look at the Big Hero Six trailer

Unshaved Mouse has been nominated for Best Blog Post at the Blog Awards Ireland 2014. Please take a minute to click on this link below and vote for me. You can vote once every week. Thanks a million, Mouse.

***

So after a long period of radio silence Disney have finally released the first teaser trailer for the next installment in the canon, Big Hero Six. We’ll take a look at the teaser in a second but first, let’s go over what we know about this one.

What is Big Hero Six?

Big Hero Six is a movie.

See? This is why I come here. Searing insight like that.

Well I aim to please.

What is the movie about, smart guy?

Big Hero Six came about with Disney’s acquisition of Marvel Comics. The Disney animators were told to go through Marvel’s back catalogue to look for concepts that would work as animated features.

So, when presented with the opportunity to play with Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four, Nextwave…

They chose Big Hero Six, an obscure team of Japanese superheroes. Correct.

So who are Big Hero Six?

The original team included X-Men characters Sunfire and Silver Samurai, GoGo Tomago who can transform into a ball of energy, Honey Lemon who can pull any object out of her magic purse, boy genius Hiro Takachito and his robot buddy Baymax. They’ve made the odd appearance in other books, and were introduced in Starfire & Big Hero Six #1.

Was it any good?

I dunno.

Wait a minute. You? Unshaved Mouse? Don’t know something about a comic book?

Really, really, really obscure property guys. I’m a nerd, I’m not a “I’ve read Big Hero Six” nerd. However, it was written by Scott Lobdell who wrote this little treasure.

Worst goddamn book of the worst goddam reboot in the worst goddamn period of DC history.

Worst goddamn book of the worst goddamn reboot in the worst goddamn period of DC history…sorry I’m getting off track.

So I’m guessing it’s not the second coming of Watchmen.

So why would Disney choose to adapt a property that was both so obscure and so tainted with Lobdell stink?

Probably precisely because it was so obscure. One thing that holds true with Disney adaptations across the eras is that they tend to be, very, very loose, often deviating wildly from the source material.

This is, after all, the company that took the story of a chicken getting hit on the head with an acorn and turned it into War of the Worlds .

If you are a Big Hero Six fan hoping for a faithful adaptation of the comic then this is not the movie you’re looking for. We can go about our business. Move along. If Disney had decided to do, say, an animated Captain America movie, they’d have legions of fanboys breathing down their next over the slightest change to the story. With Big Hero Six, they have more freedom to truly make it their own (and if the movie is a success, you can damn well bet that Marvel will change the in-comic team to more closely resemble the movie). Disney seem to have been attracted to the story by the relationship between Hiro and Baymax and will apparently be focussing on that. Also, Sunfire and Silver Samurai will almost certainly not be appearing in the film as Sunfire is an X-Man and Silver Samurai is a Wolverine villain, the movie rights to which are both owned by Fox.

I want Robert Downey Junior in my lady parts. Since this is a Marvel movie, is there a chance that Iron Man might cameo. Is this connected to the greater Marvel cinematic universe?

Almost certainly no. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say DEFINITELY no. Disney seems to have created an entirely new fictional world for this movie. It takes place in “San Fransokyo”, a mashup of Tokyo and San Francisco. It would be pretty much impossible to reconcile that with the more realistic world depicted in the Avengers whose nations and cities are shown to pretty much line up exactly with our own. The only possible hint of a crossover with other Marvel properties is that Samuel L. Jackson has been cast in an unconfirmed role. Will he appear as Nick Fury? Possibly. But I still wouldn’t hold out much hope of this movie crossing over with the other Marvel movies.

Alright, let’s take a look at the trailer.

Hmmm…I can’t quite put my finger on it but there’s something quite familiar about this.

Okay, not the most original trailer Disney have ever done. So what we have here is a sequence of Hiro putting Baymax together. Rather than showing a sizzle reel of scenes from the movie this feels more like the Olaf/Sven shorts that Disney released before Frozen, more about showing off the characters designs and animation that going into plot. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if none of this actually ends up being in the movie. A big difference is that I absolutely hated the Olaf/Sven shorts which seemed to be aping DreamWorks whereas this feels more Pixar by way of Miyazaki to me.

Which, as pedigrees go…

“Stay Puft Marshmallow Man” Baymax is pretty adorable and the animation is of course excellent. I can’t say I’m now absolutely raring to go and see Big Hero Six but I don’t see anything here that worries me (which makes it a big step up from the Frozen teaser). We’ll see where they go from here.

What do you guys think? Let me know in comments.

Mouse.

Unshaved Mouse and Erik Copper review: Enchanted

UM: Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Unshaved Mouse, with me tonight is my lovely assitant Erik Copper, say hi to the nice folks Erik.

EC: Hi to the nice folks, Erik!

UM: Alright, listen buster, you want a corny joke war you got a corny joke war.

EC: Oh, trust me, good sir, I am more than proficient in the art of the corny joke. How do the folks over seas say it? “You don’t want nunna this?”

UM: They do say that. In England. Which, for me, is also overseas.

EC: Ah, yes. “The pond” as I heard it once called. Anyway, there are people reading this post, and I’m sure they heard enough of your corny jokes from the past 47 reviews. Ohhhh! And that is what we Americans call a “sick burn”.

UM: Yes. There are people reading this. Because it is my blog. Key difference. In Ireland, that is what we call “sruthán tinn.”

EC: You’ll have to excuse me. I do not speak–

UM: Don’t say Gaelic. Don’t say Gaelic. I warn you. Do not say Gaelic.

EC: “Paddy-talk.”

UM: Much better. So, before we incite an international incident., how about we talk about Enchanted?

EC: Well…From last week’s “next week” preview, I have a feeling your thoughts of this movie might already incite an international incident. I hear you do not like this film?

UM: Ah….okay, I may have overstated the case. No, I didn’t. I hate this movie. But I recognise that it’s not bad, and that there’s a lot of good in it. But, I think it’s kind of mediocre and phoned in and really overrated. It’s like American History X for me.

EC: But isn’t that part of the charm? It’s supposed to be a parody/deconstruction of the Disney princess motif. And in that respect, I think it does it’s job really well. Showing that the Disney “magic” doesn’t really exist outside of film kind of makes the charm all the more endearing.

UM: Well, firstly I don’t think it does it WELL, I think it does it like…competently. Like, it starts with the premise of letting a Disney princess loose in modern day New York, gets the most obvious jokes it can out of it (and don’t get me wrong, just because they’re obvious doesn’t mean they’re not funny), but it never really goes beyond that. It does everything you expect with the concept and not a jot more. And it’s not that noticeable because Amy Adams and James Marsden are giving it so much energy. I mean, they are both really, really appealing in this. That’s why I likened it to American History X, a mediocre movie that people think is great because it has a really good lead performance. Also, it’s about white supremacy.

EC: I’ve never seen American History X, but that description makes me think I might have a Song of the South reaction to the film. While I do see the side of your argument (and believe me, this movie seems to have more sides than an octagon) I think the point of the movie isn’t to give more than what it did. If you think about it, the film’s concept isn’t really all that broad. “Fairy tale in New York” (No, Pogue’s fans, go away). That’s a theme you can’t do much with, because fairy tales are so confined to a certain kind of feel, and real life contrasts with it so much. I think what the movie did with what it had made it a better film than you’re giving it credit for.

UM: “It’s Christmas Eve Baaaaaaaaabe….in the drunk taaaaaaaaank!” I’m sorry, did you say something?

EC: Goddammit, I’ve lost the Mouse. After I fetch a cat to try and wake him up (fear is often the best medicine, I find), we’ll start the actual review.

Hssssssssssss!

UM: You ever….EVER do that to me again. You just wait. I’m gonna get your natural predator and launch it at you when you least expect it!

EC: Somehow, I doubt that entirely. ANYWAY! How does the movie start?

(more…)

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #47: Meet the Robinsons

I never get to say everything I want to say with these things, there’s never enough time. For example, in the Chicken Little review there was actually a lot of fascinating stuff going on between Disney and Pixar that I didn’t even get to mention because I spent so much time talking about the fan-hate for that film and how I felt it was completely overblown. So, Chicken Little came out around the time when Pixar’s co-production deal with Disney was coming up for renewal and there was a lot riding on it, as whether it was a success or failure would strengthen or weaken Disney’s hand at the negotiating table. A flop would allow Pixar to say “See? You can’t make CGI movies without us, your movies blow chunks.” and a success would allow Disney to say “Nu-uh, our movies are totally boss and everyone says so.”

A typical Disney boardroom negotiation.

Chicken Little was released in 2005 and was a resounding minor success. Critics hated it, but it did do quite well at the box-office. Pixar realised that while Disney’s CGI output might not be ready for primetime, they’d probably be better to have as a friend than as an enemy. And so Disney and Pixar patched things up and decided to stay together for the kids and the billions of box-office and merchandising revenue generated by those kids. Disney acquired Pixar wholesale in 2006, at which point it became very, very difficult to tell where Disney ends and Pixar begins, what’s a Pixar movie and what’s a Disney movie and who exactly is qualified to be a Disney princess.

Sure. Why not? She wasn’t in a canon Disney film, but why not? Hell, let’s make BUGS BUNNY a Disney Princess, who cares anymore?

Sorry. It’s just been a dark time for people like me who don’t like their fishfingers touching the peas. Today’s movie, Meet the Robinsons was created right about the time that “Disney” and “Pixar” were becoming “DisneyPixar” (“Dixar”, as the media conglomerate shippers call them) and it really, really, really shows. In every Disney era there is a movie that sums up that whole era perfectly. Pinocchio is the quintessential Tar and Sugar movie, Jungle Book perfectly defines Scratchy Movies and honestly, I kinda feel that Meet the Robinsons is the ultimate Lost Era movie. Not that it’s bad (it’s not). But it is thoroughly weird and constantly searching for a tone. There’s also a wild, “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” style to its comedy, and in fairness to it, a lot of it does indeed stick. It’s a movie that feels more like several little movies strung together rather than a single, cohesive whole. But first a little background.

Meet the Robinsons is loosely based on A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce, the infamous Anglo-Irish fascist who, during the second world war broadcast Nazi propaganda from Berlin into British homes as the notorious “Lord Haw Haw”…

“I’m sorry…”

Ah. Different William Joyce. This William Joyce is an American illustrator, children’s author and animator and most definitely not a Nazi. He did write Epic, however, so. Y’know. He’s not Mother Teresa either. He also worked on some really good movies like Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. Which side of the spectrum does Meet the Robinsons fall on? Let’s take a look.

(more…)

Disney Reviews with Unshaved Mouse #46: Chicken Little

“WE WANT BLOOD!”
“WE WANT BLOOD!”

“Guys, that crowd is getting pretty nasty. Has he started reviewing it yet?”

“Nah man. He just watched it and now he’s just sitting there not doing any damn thang.”

“What?! Mouse, cmon! Snap out of it!”

“…”

"I told you it was too soon! I told we couldnt expect to review so soon after Foodfight! I TOLD YOU ALL! "

“I told you! I told you we couldn’t expect to review another movie so soon, after…that…other movie. I TOLD YOU ALL! “

"SHUT UP! Mouse, listen to me! You've kept them waiting too long, if you don't review this movie we're going to be killed by hardcore Disney fans!"

“SHUT UP! Mouse, listen to me! You’ve kept them waiting too long, if you don’t tear this movie apart they’re going to kill us all!”

“I…can’t…”

“I knew it! He’s too traumatised! Why din’t you listen to me?! Making him watch that piece of shit so soon after Foodfight…”

“NYAAAAAARRGGHHH!”

“Sorry, sorry, my bad.”

“BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!”

“Listen dawg. Ain’t no thang. Just go out there and tell them that the movie was a piece of shit and then you never have to see it again.”

“That’s not the problem. I…I liked it.”

"Oh Jesus. That's it everybody, run for your lives. Latin America, you run out and create a distraction."

“Oh Jesus. That’s it everybody, run for your lives. Latin America, you go out and create a distraction.”

“Sure thing…heeeeey, wait a minute!”

“What?”

“That’s a “diversion”, not a “distraction” silly.”

“Aw, you’re so smart. Now get going! We’ll rendezvous in the afterlife. Let’s go Mouse. You packin’ Asia?”

“You know it. Let’s murder some bitches.”

“No. It’s alright. I’ll go and talk to them.”

***

Okay. Well. No point beating around the bush. Time to take my punishment like a mouse. Here goes.

ATTENTION INTERNET! CHICKEN LITTLE IS NOT THAT BAD! I REPEAT! CHICKEN LITTLE IS NOT THAT BAD! PLEASE ADJUST YOUR OPINIONS ON THE BADNESS OF CHICKEN LITTLE ACCORDINGLY!

DINOSAUR REMAINS SHIT!

THAT IS ALL!

“…”

“Um…hello?”

“I think they’re paralysed with rage, boss.”

“Ah. How long before they recover and tear me limb from limb like wet tissue paper?”

“Eight, nine minutes?”

Okay. Better make this quick.

(more…)