Winnie the Pooh

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. I do not claim ownership of this material - all images and footage used are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise.

                                                 

The second Winnie the Pooh film is just as sweet as its predecessor, has better songs and is funnier, even if it doesn’t quite tug at the same heartstrings as the first film.

Like the first theatrical Winnie the Pooh film, the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, it’s comprised of a series of stories, rather than having an overarching plot, but less high-stakes plotlines will always suit the franchise in all of its forms.

The animation is fun and creative, whilst the stories are some of the most entertaining in the franchise, which is helped by a surprisingly witty script. As I mentioned, the music is also great and considering it was written by future Frozen writers Robert Lopez and Kristen Andersen-Lopez, it’s not very surprising in hindsight.

As I said in my review of the previous Winnie the Pooh film, the characters and their storylines are just so innocent that it’s impossible to hate. It’s a massive shame that Disney’s marketing department were daft enough to put this up against the final Harry Potter movie, because it’s a fun and entertaining movie, which definitely didn’t deserve its abysmal box office numbers. And then to make it worse they once again blamed hand-drawn animation, but that’s another story…

Ratings

Good guys: Some of the most beloved characters of all time are at their best here, so the characters get 9/10

Bad guys: It doesn’t really have a bad guy, so this category gets a neutral score of 5/10

Animation: There is some fun animation on display here, so the animation gets 7/10

Music: Some really great songs here, so the music gets 7/10

Plot: All of the storylines are really fun, so the plot gets 7/10

Overall score: 35/50

Next review: Wreck it Ralph

Tangled

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. I do not claim ownership of this material - all images and footage used are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise.

                                                   

After the Princess and the Frog, it was clear that returning fully to the old Renaissance formula wasn’t going to bring Disney Animation back. They needed a shake up – and boy did Tangled provide one. This film was the perfect balance of old and new, adding a more modern and often comedic style to it’s music and animation whilst still retaining what made those 90s movies great.

The step up in animation between this and Disney’s last attempts at CGI are incredible. This is a beautiful film, with the lantern sequence being a particular highlight. The way in which the original (and to be honest slightly nonsensical) story of Rapunzel is updated and added to is brilliant and adds a new sense of originality.

The characters are also all wonderful. Rapunzel’s curiosity and endless optimism make her one of the best Princesses in the canon and the villainous Mother Gothel manages to be incredibly entertaining and pure evil at the same time. Flynn Ryder is also charming and his character development is one of the film’s greatest assets.

All of the songs are really fun individually, although the soundtrack as a whole suffers slightly from not really having much of a uniform style.

Overall, Tangled is up there with Disney’s best films.

Ratings

Good guys:  Rapunzel and Flynn are two of the most dynamic protagonists in the canon, so the characters get 9/10

Bad guys: Mother Gothel is one of the all-time great Disney villains, so she gets 10/10

Animation: Incredibly beautiful, the animation gets 10/10

Music: Although it could have benefited from a more uniform sound, the music is really great, so it gets 8/10

Plot: A clever twist on a classic fairy-tale, the plot gets 10/10

Overall score: 47/50

Next review: Winnie the Pooh 

The Princess and the Frog

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. I do not claim ownership of this material - all images and footage used are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise.

I’ve always said that Princess and the Frog just came out at the wrong time – if it had been released in 2018, it would have been a much bigger hit. Not only were people (unfortunately) less interested in diverse media ten years ago than they would be now, but it came out at a time when Disney animation was in desperate need of a shake-up. As beautiful as the film was, it didn’t offer anything new to audiences whose attention needed to be really captured with something completely different.

Princess and the Frog is a renaissance classic in every way, a musical with hand-drawn animation and really fun bad guy who isn’t a surprise villain, (I know that might be shocking to read now, but it’s true). The first thing I always enjoy about this film is how beautiful the animation is – every frame looks stunning and it breaks my heart a little that this was the last hand-drawn film that Disney made. It of course has the first African American princess in Tiana, who makes for a very likable lead. Prince Naveen is a lot of fun and I also really enjoy the way that both of the leads are flawed characters at the beginning of the film, who help each other to grow into happier and healthier people. In addition, the plot is an interesting twist on a classic fairy-tale, but it still manages to feel like an old-school straight adaptation of an existing story.

I also find a lot of the music fun, although for the most part it’s not as good as the best music of the Renaissance, unfortunately.

But overall, Princess and the Frog is a fantastic film and I’m so happy that it’s finally starting to get the love that it deserves. 

Ratings

Good guys: Tiana and Naveen are both really great characters who have really interesting development together, so the good guys get 8/10

Bad guys: Dr Faclier is a really fun villain, so the bad guys get 7/10

Animation: Visually one of Disney’s best films, the animation gets 10/10

Music: It has some really good songs and some more forgettable ones, so overall the music gets 7/10

Plot: An interesting twist on Disney’s usual fairy-tale formula, the plot gets 6/10

Overall score: 38/50

Next review: Tangled

Bolt

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. I do not claim ownership of this material - all images and footage used are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise.

                                                              

It’s safe to say that by 2008 Disney animation had been on a losing streak for a while, but when Bolt came out, they came back with a film that was both hilarious and packed a surprising emotional punch.

As this film is tragically underrated, many of you might not know the plot. It’s essentially about a dog named Bolt who stars on a television show and is convinced it’s all real, who then escapes into the real world and hilarity ensues. Many of the animal films in the canon so far have fallen into the trap of being overly fluffy, but here the storyline has some real emotional stakes, helped in part by the fantastic vocal performances of John Travolta, Susie Essman, Miley Cyrus and Mark Wolton.

The way that the film is able to balance its funny moments with it’s truly heart-warming and emotional moments is very admirable and its witty script also helps a lot.

In comparison to Disney’s last efforts, the animation has improved significantly and the usual pop songs have now been replaced with both a really great score and one rather sweet song that actually suits the atmosphere of the film.

Disney once again tried something different with Bolt – but this time, it finally paid off.

Ratings

Good guys: All of the main characters are very likable and compelling, meaning the good guys get 7/10

Bad guys: Not applicable

Animation: There is some really nice animation here, so it gets 6/10

Music: There is a really nice score here, so the music gets 6/10

Plot: A witty story which is also surprisingly emotional, the plot gets 8/10

Overall score: 32/50

Next review: The Princess and The Frog

Meet the Robinsons

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. I do not claim ownership of this material - all images and footage used are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. 

Although Meet the Robinsons does suffer the pitfalls of its predecessors, it has a very sweet story with the best of intentions at its core.

Meet the Robinsons is about an orphan (and brilliant inventor) named Lewis who is whisked away and in a time machine and is taken into the future by a mysterious stranger named Wilbur Robinson.   

When I say it suffers the pitfalls of its predecessors, you’ll probably know what I mean by now. Whilst the animation is definitely an improvement on Chicken Little, it’s not exactly up to Disney’s previous standards, as they were still figuring out the whole CGI thing. Additionally, much like Home on the Range, the film is really too zany for its own good much of the time – a lot of the humour is so all over the place that the whole thing just ends up feeling chaotic.

Luckily, it does actually have a really good storyline, with very likable characters, all of whom have well developed relationships. There is also a very effective twist in the middle, which strengthens this asset even more – unfortunately, much of the time-travel aspects of the plot don’t really make much sense, which means that it falls a little flat in the climax, but it works well overall.

The villain, named Bowler Hat Guy, also has a great character design and a good old-fashioned, purely evil villain is something Disney had been missing for a long time at this point.

Whilst Meet the Robinsons certainly isn’t Disney’s best film, I would say it’s definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it already!

Overall score

Good guys: Most of the main characters are pretty likable, so the good guys get a solid 6/10

Bad guys: The Bowler Hat Guy makes for an entertaining villain, so he also gets 6/10

Animation: Although it’s not as bad as Chicken Little, it’s still not great, so the animation gets 4/10

Music: There are a few catchy pop tunes used, but much of the soundtrack is actually quite forgettable 5/10

Plot: Whilst some of the time-travel aspects of the storyline don’t make much sense, it has a very sweet plot overall, so the story gets 6/10

Overall score: 27/50

Next review: Bolt

Chicken Little

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. I do not claim ownership of this material - all images and footage used are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. 

                                                                    

Whilst it’s not as terrible as Home on the Range, Chicken Little goes in such a bizarre direction and has such dire animation that it still ranks amongst the worst films so far.  

In fact, the basic idea behind the film, that Chicken Little was right and that the sky really was falling, actually shows some promise, as it’s a unique and interesting take on a classic children’s story. If this film had been made in any other decade, it could’ve turned out a lot better. Unfortunately, it was made in the 2000s when Walt Disney Animation Studios were desperately trying to keep up with shiny new modern studios Dreamworks and Pixar. As previously seen in their other films to increasing extents, this meant that classic timeless stories with beautiful animation were out and desperate attempts to be hip and ‘down with the kids’ were in. Due to the failure of Home on the Range, Disney also decided to scrap hand drawn animation. Because that’s why Home on the Range flopped apparently. As a result, Chicken Little was Disney’s first foray into CGI and… let’s just say it doesn’t look great. In fact, other than a few nice backgrounds and some creative scenery choices, much of the film is quite frankly ugly to look at. Their desperate need to be trendy also means that unfortunately instead of the sweeping scores of the Renaissance, we now get largely forgettable pop songs as our soundtrack.

In addition to this, when developing the premise of this film, they decided that the reason for the sky falling should be…aliens?!? As I said, this is such a bizarre direction for the plot to take that it’s hard to take it seriously after that point. Even before that, the plot about Chicken Little’s relationship with his father is marred by the fact that they somehow managed to make Chicken Little’s Dad one of the worst parents in Disney history, possibly in animation in general. The fact that Chicken Little needs to be proven right in his claims to earn his Dad’s support also sends a pretty dodgy message overall.

But outside of all this, it does have some redeeming qualities, as Chicken Little himself makes for an adorable protagonist and there are some genuinely funny moments. Other than that, there’s not much great about Chicken Little. 

Overall score

Good guys: Although Chicken Little is really cute, apart from his sidekick fish out of water none of the other good guys are particularly likable or memorable, meaning the good guys get 5/10 overall

Bad guys: The aliens also aren’t particularly memorable, so they get 4/10

Animation: Aside from some nice backgrounds, this is some of Disney’s worst animation, meaning it gets 2/10

Music: Most of the music is pretty bland, but none of it’s awful so the music balances out to 5/10

Plot: It initially shows promise, but goes in a completely bizarre direction, meaning that the plot gets 4/10

Overall score: 20/50

Next review: Meet the Robinsons

Home on the Range

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. I do not claim ownership of this material - all images and footage used are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. 

                                                                       

How can a film be so obnoxiously loud and crazy and yet so boring at the same time? Other than a slightly catchy opening song, I can’t think of a single redeeming quality in this thing…

For those of you lucky enough to have not sat through Home on the Range, it’s the film widely regarded as having killed of hand drawn animation at Walt Disney Animation Studios for good and is  about a group of cows who go to catch a cattle rustler to save their farm. The characters are all unoriginal archetypes – you have the snooty posh cow, the one who shakes things up, the ditzy one, the horse who wants to be the hero. No depth is added to any of them, so the characters and storyline come across as boring and unoriginal. Which they are.

The villain is just as irritating and forgettable as the rest of the characters and the way in which many of the characters fall for his scheme is simply stupid.

As I said, this film’s tone is also too zany and cartoony for its own good, meaning it just becomes annoying for the most part. There’s so much crazy action going on that the whole thing comes across as garish and the fact that the majority of the film is entirely unfunny doesn’t help matters either.

You can see where the storyline is going from a mile off, with them all not getting along and going on a journey to bond, so there aren’t really even any surprises along the way, except for one twist involving a character that no one really cared about in the first place. 

Overall, this is definitely one to skip.

Ratings

Good guys: A majority of the characters in this are irritating archetypes, so the good guys get 1/10

Bad guys: Slim is also pretty annoying, although slightly less so than the heroes, so the bad guys get 2/10

Animation: For much of the time, the animation only contributes to the garish tone of the whole thing, although it doesn’t look too bad overall, so the animation gets 4/10

Music: All of the songs are either incredibly irritating or incredibly forgettable, with the exception of the alright opening song, so the music gets 3/10

Plot: Boring and predictable, the plot gets 1/10

Overall score: 11/50

Next review: Chicken Little