When it comes to Disney Animation, this one is a monster of a film to
tackle, in spite of it's obscurity. This was the most expensive fantasy film
ever made, infamously beaten in the box office by the Care Bears movie, the
film that almost killed Animation at Disney, arguably their greatest shame- but
is it all that bad? Sort of...
It's a frustrating one to watch, because it had the potential to be
good. The dark fantasy genre could have been a great fit for animation and
would have allowed Disney to go in a new and exciting direction, but in this
case a paper thin plot combined with irritating and/or flat characters results
in disappointment.
It's essentially a tired retread of story done many times before- a
young boy named Taran wants to be a warrior and goes on a quest to find the
Black Cauldron of the title, before it can be used by the evil Horned King. The
way in which the first two books of Lloyd's Alexanders' Chronicles of Prydain
series were adapted results in a by the numbers fantasy film which offers no
real surprises to it's viewers.
The film also clearly suffered as a result of it's troubled production,
as much of what was supposed to be impressive animation-wise was eventually
scaled back and cut during Jeffery Katzenberg's infamous edits, when he became
head of Animation several years into the film's production. In spite of this
however, there are some nice backgrounds and the Horned King does have a pretty
cool character design.
It doesn't help, however, that none of the characters in the film are
particularly interesting, or even likeable for that matter. In a 'journey' film
like this, you need to like the protagonists you are spending time with.
Unfortunately, in this film we're stuck with a cliche of a lead character,
completely forgettable supporting characters and the most irritating 'animal'
side character in the canon with...whatever Gurgi is supposed to be.
The Horned King can be pretty menacing at points, but one decent villain
is not enough to save this film.
Ratings
Good guys: All of the leads are forgettable
and Gurgi is very annoying, so the good guys get 2/10
Bad guys: The Horned King is an ok
villain, so the bad guys get 5/10
Animation: There are some nice backgrounds
and a cool character design in the Horned King, meaning the animation gets
6/10
Music: The score is nice in some places
and repetitive in others, so the music gets 5/10
Plot: Like I said, it's simply a paint
by numbers fantasy film, so the plot gets 4/10
Overall Rating: 22/50
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