The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad

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This film is the last of the Package Era films and falls slap bang into the middle of the ones that I have been able to review here in terms of quality.

I really enjoy both of the classic stories that the two halves of this movie tell- and strangely enough, they do seem to go together really well. They are linked as they are both based on classic literature, but at the same time the more light-hearted nature of the Wind in the Willows balances out the darker storyline of Ichabod Crane.

I also really like the music, especially the Headless Horseman song. It just has a really fun tune- but the other songs range from ok (the songs in Ichabod Crane) to a bit irritating (We’re Merrily on Our Way to Nowhere). The animation is also generally decent- but the Headless Horseman sequence at the end of the Ichabod Crane section particularly stands out. Something about the background and the way in which the animation builds up the atmosphere is effectively eerie, making for a really tense scene overall.

The Headless Horseman is a great villain generally, even with his short amount of screen time- he has a great design and it works really well with the atmosphere of the scene, allowing him to be scary without even uttering a single line of dialogue.

As you can probably tell from this rather unbalanced review, the Ichabod Crane segment is the better of the two. The Wind in the Willows story is perfectly entertaining, but the Disney version doesn’t do anything particularly notable or special with it.

Generally, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad is an enjoyable film that is a good end to this era of Disney Animation.

Rating

Good guys: I wouldn’t really call Ichabod Crane a good guy, but Toad is a great protagonist in any film he’s in, so overall the good guys get 6/10

Bad Guys: The Headless Horseman is a very effective antagonist, so the bad guys get 7/10

Animation: With the exception of the Headless Horseman scene, none of the animation is particularly special, so it gets a 5/10

Music: The songs are pretty mixed on the whole, but the Headless Horseman song brings the film’s music up to a 5/10

Plot: Both storylines are classics and as a result the plot gets a 6/10

Overall score: 29/50

Next review: Cinderella