Fantasia

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I’ll admit I had been dreading this one a bit. It’s just so unique, that it is actually quite challenging to review- it doesn’t play by regular movie rules. But there are still some things to be said about both the good (and not so good) parts of Fantasia.

First of all, it should be praised for taking such a different concept and actually pulling it off. Overall, it is able to balance both its more abstract and narrative based scenes and it pulls both off very well.  

Obviously, the music is spectacular, with the soundtrack being made up of various iconic composers. 

The music and the animation also correlate nicely. The scenes depicted in each segment match the mood of each piece extraordinarily well. Certain specific moments also match up perfectly to the music, which is very satisfying to watch. The best way to put it is ‘well-choreographed’.

Now for the animation. Much of the film looks beautiful, particularly the Nutcracker, Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria segments. They all look wonderful, but there is nothing spectacular is done with the animation in any of the other segments-they look nice, but that is about it.

In terms of characters, there isn’t really much to say- many of the segments don’t really have defined characters, as there is more of a focus on the animation and the music. The only two characters who really stand out are Chernabog in Night on Bald Mountain, who manages to be one of the best Disney villains in the canon through his character design alone and obviously Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Overall, Fantasia should be admired simply for the fact that is able to pull off such a bold idea and as a film it does work pretty well.

Rating

Good Guys: Obviously, Mickey Mouse is an iconic and very likeable character, but there are no other interesting good guys thrown into the mix, resulting in a score of 7/10

Bad Guys: Chernabog has a really cool design and is very intimidating despite not really doing much, giving the villain score an 8/10

Animation: Whilst the three segments I mentioned are wonderful in terms of animation, there is not really much to the rest of it, putting the animation score at a 6/10

Music: The music is obviously amazing and matches up to the animation very well, meaning that it gets a 10/10

Plot: Whilst there isn’t really a plot to the film, there are some interesting narratives within each segment and overall the structure works very well, giving the plot an 8/10

Overall Score: 39/50

Next up: Dumbo